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This  BOOK  may  be  kept  out  TWO  V  EEKS 
ONLY,  and  is  subject  to  a  fine  of  FIVE 
CENTS  a  day  thereafter.  It  is  due  i  the 
day  indicated  below: 


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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 


"'•/«  F.  f.wnm-i''- 


THE  LAST  PORTRAIT  OF  JOHN  BURROUGHS 

(March  23,  1921;  six  days  before  his  death) 

Made  at  Pasadena  Glen,  California,  by  his  long-time 
friend  Charles  F.  Lummis 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 


BY 
JOHN  BURROUGHS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  I92I,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


PREFACE 

It  was  while  sitting  in  his  hay-barn  study  in  the 
Catskills  and  looking  out  upon  the  maple  woods  of 
the  old  home  farm,  and  under  the  maples  at  Riv- 
erby,  that  the  most  of  these  essays  were  written, 
during  the  last  two  years  of  the  author's  life.  And  it 
was  to  the  famihar  haunts  near  his  Hudson  River 
home  that  his  thoughts  wistfully  turned  while  win- 
tering in  Southern  California  in  1921.  As  he  pictured 
in  his  mind  the  ice  breaking  up  on  the  river  in  the 
crystalUne  March  days,  the  return  of  the  birds,  the 
first  hepaticas,  he  longed  to  be  back  among  them;  he 
was  there  in  spirit,  gazing  upon  the  river  from  the 
summer-house,  or  from  the  veranda  of  the  Nest,  or 
seated  at  his  table  in  the  chestnut-bark  Study,  or 
busy  with  his  sap-gathering  and  sugar-making. 

Casting  about  for  a  title  for  tliis  volume,  the 
vision  of  maple-trees  and  dripping  sap  and  crisp 
March  days  playing  constantly  before  his  mind, 
one  day  while  sorting  and  shifting  the  essays  for  his 
new  book,  he  suddenly  said,  "I  have  it!  We'll  call 
it  Under  the  Maples! " 

His  love  for  the  maple,  and  consequently  his 
pleasure  in  having  hit  upon  this  title,  can  be  gath- 
ered from  the  following  fragment  found  among  his 
miscellaneous  notes:  "I  always  feel  at  home  where 

49652 


PREFACE 

the  sugar  maple  grows  It  was  paramount  in  the 
woods  of  the  old  home  farm  where  I  grew  up.  It 
looks  and  smells  hke  home.  When  I  bring  in  a  ma- 
ple stick  to  put  on  my  fire,  I  feel  like  caressing  it  a 
httle.  Its  fiber  is  as  white  as  a  lily,  and  nearly  as 
sweet-scented.  It  is  such  a  tractable,  satisfactory 
wood  to  handle  —  a  clean,  docile,  wholesome  tree; 
burning  without  snapping  or  sputtering,  easily 
worked  up  into  stovewood,  fine  of  grain,  hard  of 
texture,  stately  as  a  forest  tree,  comely  and  clean  as 
a  shade  tree,  glorious  in  autumn,  a  fountain  of  cool- 
ness in  summer,  sugar  in  its  veins,  gold  in  its  foliage, 
warmth  in  its  fibers,  and  health  in  it  the  year 
round." 

Clara  Barrus 

The  Nest  at  Riverby 
West  Park  on  the  Hudson 
New  York 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Falling  Leaves  1 

II.  The  Pleasures  of  a  Naturalist  11 

III.  The  Flight  of  Birds  32 

IV.  Bird  Intimacies  39 
V.  A  Midsummer  Idyl  69 

VI.  Near  Views  of  Wild  Life  79 

VII.  With  Roosevelt  at  Pine  Knot  101 

VIII.  A  Strenuous  Holiday  109 

IX.  Under  Genial  Skies  127 

I.  A  Sun-Blessed  Land  127 

II.  Lawn  Birds  129 
HI.  Silken  Chambers  132 
IV.  The  Desert  Note  143 

V.  Sea-Dogs  148 

X.  A  Sheaf  of  Nature  Notes  1«'>2 

I.  Nature's  Wireless  152 

II.  Maeterlinck  on  the  Bee  156 

III.  Odd  or  Even  163 

IV.  Why  and  How  165 
V.  An  Insoluble  Problem  167 

VI.  A  Live  World  169 

VII.  Darwinism  and  the  War  172 

VHI.  The  Robin  175 

IX.  The  Weasel  177 

X.  Misinterpreting  Nature  179 

XL  Natural  Sculpture  181 

•  • 

vn 


CONTENTS 


XI.  Ruminations 

184 

I.  Man  a  Part  of  Nature 

184 

II.  Marcus  Aurelius  on  Death 

185 

III.  The  Interpreter  of  Nature 

186 

IV.  Original  Sources 

190 

V.  The  Cosmic  Harmony 

191 

VI.  Cosmic  Rhythms 

193 

VII.  The  Beginnings  of  Life 

194 

VIII.  Spendthrift  Nature 

195 

XII.  New  Gleanings  in  Field  and  Wood 

197 

I.  Sunrise 

197 

II.  Nature's  Methods 

199 

III.  Heads  and  Tails 

205 

IV.  An  Unsavory  Subject 

206 

V.  Chance  in  Animal  Life 

208 

VI.  Mosquitoes  and  Fleas 

210 

VII.  The  Change  of  Climate  in 

Southern  California 

210 

VIII.  AU-Seeing  Nature 

212 

Index 

217 

UNDER  THE  MAPLES 


UNDER 
THE  MAPLES 

I 

THE  FALLING  LEAVES 

The  time  of  the  falling  of  leaves  has  come  again. 
Once  more  in  our  morning  walk  we  tread  upon 
carpets  of  gold  and  crimson,  of  brown  and  bronze, 
woven  by  the  winds  or  the  rains  out  of  these  deli- 
cate textures  while  we  slept. 

How  beautifully  the  leaves  grow  old !  How  full  of 
light  and  color  are  their  last  days!  There  are 
exceptions,  of  course.  The  leaves  of  most  of  the 
fruit-trees  fade  and  wither  and  fall  ingloriously. 
They  bequeath  their  heritage  of  color  to  their  fruit. 
Upon  it  they  lavish  the  hues  which  other  trees 
lavish  upon  their  leaves.  The  pear-tree  is  often 
an  exception.  I  have  seen  pear  orchards  in  Oc- 
tober painting  a  hillside  in  hues  of  mingled  bronze 
and  gold.  And  well  may  the  pear-tree  do  this,  it 
is  so  chary  of  color  upon  its  fruit. 

But  in  October  what  a  feast  to  the  eye  our  woods 
and  groves  present!  The  whole  body  of  the  air 
seems  enriched  by  their  calm,  slow  radiance.  They 
are  giving  back  the  light  they  have  been  absorbing 
from  the  sun  all  summer. 

1 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

The  carpet  of  the  newly  fallen  leaves  looks  so 
clean  and  delicate  when  it  first  covers  the  paths  and 
the  highways  that  one  almost  hesitates  to  walk 
upon  it.  Was  it  the  gallant  Raleigh  who  threw 
down  his  cloak  for  Queen  Elizabeth  to  walk  upon? 
See  what  a  robe  the  maples  have  thrown  down  for 
you  and  me  to  walk  upon!  How  one  hesitates  to 
soil  it!  The  summer  robes  of  the  groves  and  the 
forests — more  than  robes,  a  vital  part  of  themselves, 
the  myriad  living  nets  with  which  they  have  cap- 
tured, and  through  which  they  have  absorbed,  the 
energy  of  the  solar  rays.  What  a  change  when  the 
leaves  are  gone,  and  what  a  change  when  they  come 
again!  A  naked  tree  may  be  a  dead  tree.  The 
dry,  inert  bark,  the  rough,  wirelike  twigs  change 
but  little  from  summer  to  winter.  When  the  leaves 
come,  what  a  transformation,  what  mobility,  what 
sensitiveness,  what  expression!  Ten  thousand 
delicate  veined  hands  reaching  forth  and  waving 
a  greeting  to  the  air  and  light,  making  a  union  and 
compact  with  them,  like  a  wedding  ceremony. 
How  young  the  old  trees  suddenly  become!  what 
suppleness  and  grace  invest  their  branches!  The 
leaves  are  a  touch  of  immortal  youth.  As  the 
cambium  layer  beneath  the  bark  is  the  girdle  of 
perennial  youth,  so  the  leaves  are  the  facial  ex- 
pression of  the  same  quality.  The  leaves  have  their 
day  and  die,  but  the  last  leaf  that  comes  to  the 
branch  is  as  young  as  the  first.     The  leaves  and 

2 


THE  FALLING  LEAVES 

the  blossom  and  the  fruit  of  the  tree  come  and  go, 
yet  they  age  not;  under  the  magic  touch  of  spring 
the  miracle  is  repeated  over  and  over. 

^The  maples  perhaps  undergo  the  most  complete 
transformation  of  all  the  forest  trees.  Their  leaves 
fairly  become  luminous,  as  if  they  glowed  with 
inward  light.  In  October  a  maple-tree  before 
your  window  lights  up  your  room  like  a  great  lamp. 
Even  on  cloudy  days  its  presence  helps  to  dispel 
the  gloom.  The  elm,  the  oak,  the  beech,  possess 
in  a  much  less  degree  that  quality  of  luminosity, 
though  certain  species  of  oak  at  times  are  rich  in 
shades  of  red  and  bronze.  The  leaves  of  the  trees 
just  named  for  the  most  part  turn  brown  before 
they  fall.  The  great  leaves  of  the  sycamore  assume 
a  rich  tan-color  like  fine  leather,  j 

The  spider  weaves  a  net  out  of  her  own  vitals 
with  which  to  capture  her  prey,  but  the  net  is  not 
a  part  of  herself  as  the  leaf  is  a  part  of  the  tree. 
The  spider  repairs  her  damaged  net,  but  the  tree 
never  repairs  its  leaves.  It  may  put  forth  new 
leaves,  but  it  never  essays  to  patch  up  the  old  ones. 
Every  tree  has  such  a  superabundance  of  leaves 
that  a  few  more  or  less  or  a  few  torn  and  bruised 
ones  do  not  seem  to  matter.  When  the  leaf  I 
surface  is  seriously  curtailed,  as  it  often  is  by  some 
insect  pest,  or  some  form  of  leaf-blight,  or  by  the 
ravages  of  a  hail-storm,  the  growth  of  the  tree  and 
the  maturing  of  its  fruit  is  seriously  checked.    To 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

denude  a  tree  of  its  foliage  three  years  in  succession 
usually  proves  fatal.  The  vitality  of  the  tree 
declines  year  by  year  till  death  ensues. 

To  me  nothing  else  about  a  tree  is  so  remarkable 
as  the  extreme  delicacy  of  the  mechanism  by  which 
it  grows  and  lives,  the  fine  hairlike  rootlets  at  the 
bottom  and  the  microscopical  cells  of  the  leaves  at 
the  top.  The  rootlets  absorb  the  water  charged, 
with  mineral  salts  from  the  soil,  and  the  leaves 
absorb  the  sunbeams  from  the  air.  So  it  looks  as 
if  the  tree  were  almost  made  of  matter  and  spirit, 
like  man;  the  ether  with  its  vibrations,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  earth  with  its  inorganic  compounds, 
on  the  other — earth  salts  and  sunlight.  The  sturdy 
oak,  the  gigantic  sequoia,  are  each  equally  finely 
organized  in  these  parts  that  take  hold  upon  nature. 
We  call  certain  plants  gross  feeders,  and  in  a  sense 
they  are;  but  all  are  delicate  feeders  in  their 
mechanism  of  absorption  from  the  earth  and  air. 

The  tree  touches  the  inorganic  world  at  the  two 
finest  points  of  its  structure — the  rootlets  and 
the  leaves.  These  attack  the  great  crude  world 
of  inorganic  matter  with  weapons  so  fine  that  only 
the  microscope  can  fully  reveal  them  to  us.  The 
animal  world  seizes  its  food  in  masses  little  and  big, 
and  often  gorges  itself  with  it,  but  the  vegetable, 
through  the  agency  of  the  solvent  power  of  water, 
absorbs  its  nourishment  molecule  by  molecule. 
"^A  tree  does  not  live  by  its  big  roots — these  are 

4 


THE  FALLING  LEAVES 

mainly  for  strength  and  to  hold  it  to  the  ground. 
How  they  grip  the  rocks,  fitting  themselves  to  them, 
as  Lowell  says,  like  molten  metal!  The  tree's  life 
is  in  the  fine  hairlike  rootlets  that  spring  from  the 
rootsj  Darwin  says  those  rootlets  behave  as  if 
they  had  minute  brains  in  their  extremities.  They 
feel  their  way  into  the  soil;  they  know  the  elements 
the  plant  wants;  some  select  more  lime,  others 
more  potash,  others  more  magnesia.  The  wheat 
rootlets  select  more  silica  to  make  the  stalk;  the 
pea  rootlets  select  more  lime:  the  pea  does  not 
need  the  silica.  The  individuality  of  plants  and 
trees  in  this  respect  is  most  remarkable.  The 
cells  of  each  seem  to  know  what  particular  elements 
they  want  from  the  soil,  as  of  course  they  do. 

The  vital  activity  of  the  tree  goes  on  at  three 
points — in  the  leaves,  in  the  rootlets,  and  in  the 
cambium  layer.  The  activity  of  the  leaf  and  root- 
let furnishes  the  starchy  deposit  which  forms  this 
generative  layer — the  milky,  mucilaginous  girdle 
of  matter  between  the  outer  bark  and  the  wood 
through  which  the  tree  grows  and  increases  in  size. 
Generation  and  regeneration  take  place  through 
this  layer.  I  have  called  it  the  girdle  of  perpetual 
youth.  It  never  grows  old.  It  is  annually  renewed. 
The  heart  of  the  old  apple-tree  may  decay  and 
disappear,  indeed  the  tree  may  be  reduced  to  a 
mere  shell  and  many  of  its  branches  may  die  and 
fall,  but  the  few  apples  which  it  still  bears  attest 

5 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  fact  that  its  cambium  layer,  at  least  over  a  part 
of  its  surface,  is  still  youthful  and  doing  its  work. 
It  is  this  layer  that  the  yellow-bellied  woodpecker, 
known  as  the  sapsucker,  drills  into  and  devours, 
thus  drawing  directly  upon  the  vitality  of  the  tree. 
But  his  ravages  are  rarely  serious.     Only  in  two 
instances  have  I  seen  dead  branches  on  an  apple- 
tree  that  appeared  to  be  the  result  of  his  drilling. 
What  we  call  the  heart  of  a  tree  is  in  no  sense 
the  heart;  it  has  no  vital  function,  but  only  the 
mechanical  one  of  strength  and  support.    It  adds 
to  the  tree's  inertia  and  power  to  resist  storms. 
The  trunk  of  a  tree  is  like  a  community  where  only 
one  generation  at  a  time  is  engaged  in  active  busi- 
ness, the  great  mass  of  the  population  being  retired 
and  adding  solidity  and  permanence  to  the  social 
organism.    The  rootlets  of  a  plant  or  a  tree  are 
like  the  laborers  in  the  field  that  produce  for  us 
the  raw  material  of  our  food,  while  the  leaves  are 
like  our  many  devices  for  rendering  it  edible  and 
nourishing.     The  rootlets  continue  their  activity 
in  the  fall,  after   the   leaves   have   fallen,   and 
thus  gorge  the  tree  with  fluid  against  the  needs  of 
the  spring.    In  the  growing  tree  or  vine  the  sap, 
charged  with  nourishment,  flows  down  from  the 
top   to   the    roots.     In   the  spring  it  evidently 
flows  upward,  seeking  the  air  through  the  leaves. 
Or  rather,  we  may  say  that  the  crude  sap  always 
flows  upward,  while  the  nutritive  sap  flows  down- 

6 


THE  FALLING  LEAVES 

ward,   thus  giving  the    tree    a    kind    of    double 
circulation. 

A  tree  may  be  no  more  beautiful  and  wonderful 
when  we  have  come  to  a  knowledge  of  all  its  hidden 
processes,  but  it  certainly  is  no  less  so.     We  do 
not  think  of  the  function  of  the  leaves,  nor  of  the 
bark,  nor  of  the  roots  and  rootlets,  when  we  gaze 
upon  a  noble  oak  or  an  elm;  we  admire  it  for  its 
form,  its  sturdiness,  or  its  grace;  it  is  akin  to  our- 
selves; it  is  the  work  of  a  vast  community  of  cells 
like  those  that  build  up  our  own  bodies;  it  is  a 
fountain  of  living  matter  rising  up  out  of  the  earth 
and  splitting  up  and  spreading  out  at  its  top  in  a 
spray  of  leaves  and  flowers;  and  if  we  could  see  its 
hidden  processes  we  should  realize  how  truly  like  a 
fountain  it  is.    While  in  full  leaf  a  current  of  water 
is  constantly  flowing  through  it,  and  flowing  upward 
against  gravity.    This  stream  of  water  is  truly  its 
life  current;  it  enters  at  the  rootlets  under  the 
ground  and  escapes  at  the  top  through  the  leaves 
by  a  process  called  transpiration.    All  the  mineral 
salts  with  which  the  tree  builds  up  its  woody  tissues, 
— its  osseous  system,  so  to  speak, — the  instruments 
with  which  it  imprisons  and  consolidates  the  carbon 
which  it  obtains  from  the  air,  are  borne  in  solution 
in  this  stream  of  water.    Its  function  is  analogous  to 
that  of  the  rivers  which  bring  the  produce  and  other 
material  to  the  great  cities  situated  upon  their 
banks.    A  cloud  of  invisible  vapor  rises  from  the 

7 


UNDER  THE  IMAPLES 

top  of  every  tree  and  a  thousand  invisible  rills 
enter  it  through  its  myriad  hairlike  rootlets.  The 
trees  are  thus  conduits  in  the  circuit  of  the  waters 
from  the  earth  to  the  clouds.  Our  own  bodies  and 
the  bodies  of  all  living  things  perform  a  similar 
function.  Life  cannot  go  on  without  water,  but 
water  is  not  a  food;  it  makes  the  processes  of 
metabolism  possible;  assimilation  and  elimination 
go  on  through  its  agency.  Water  and  air  are  the 
two  ties  between  the  organic  and  the  inorganic. 
The  function  of  the  one  is  mainly  mechanical, 
that  of  the  other  is  mainly  chemical. 

As  the  water  is  drawn  in  at  the  roots,  it  flows 
out  at  the  top,  to  which  point  it  rises  by  capillary 
attraction  and  a  process  called  osmosis.  Neither 
of  them  is  a  strictly  vital  process,  since  both  are 
found  in  the  inorganic  world;  but  they  are  in  the 
service  of  what  we  call  a  vital  principle.  Some 
physicists  and  biochemists  laugh  at  the  idea  of  a 
vital  principle.  Huxley  thought  we  might  as  well 
talk  about  the  principle  of  aqueosity  in  water. 
We  are  the  victims  of  words.  The  sun  does  not 
shoot  out  beams  or  rays,  though  the  eye  reports 
such;  but  it  certainly  sends  forth  energy;  and  it 
is  as  certain  that  there  is  a  new  activity  in  matter 
— some  matter — that  we  call  vital. 

Matter  behaves  in  a  new  manner;  builds  up 
new  compounds  and  begets  myriads  of  new  forms 
not  found  in  the  inorganic  world,  till  it  finally 

8 


THE  FALLING  LEAVES 

builds  up  the  body  and  mind  of  man.  Death  puts 
an  end  to  this  activity  alike  in  man  and  tree,  and 
a  new  kind  of  activity  sets  in — a  disorganizing 
activity,  still  with  the  aid  of  water  and  air  and 
living  organisms.  It  is  like  the  compositor  dis- 
tributing his  type  after  the  book  is  printed.  The 
micro-organisms  answer  to  the  compositor,  but  they 
are  of  a  diSerent  kind  from  those  which  build  up 
the  body  in  the  first  instance.  But  the  living 
body  as  a  whole,  with  its  complex  of  coordinating 
organs  and  functions — what  attended  to  that? 
The  cells  build  the  parts,  but  what  builds  the 
whole? 

How  many  things  we  have  in  common  with  the 
trees!  The  same  mysterious  gift  of  life,  to  begin 
with;  the  same  primary  elements — carbon,  ni- 
trogen, oxygen,  and  so  on — in  our  bodies;  and 
many  of  the  same  vital  functions — respiration, 
circulation,  absorption,  assimilation,  reproduction. 
Protoplasm  is  the  basis  of  life  in  both,  and  the  cell 
is  the  architect  that  builds  up  the  bodies  of  both. 
Trees  are  rooted  men  and  men  are  walking  trees. 
The  tree  absorbs  its  earth  materials  through  the 
minute  hairs  on  its  rootlets,  called  fibrillse,  and  the 
animal  body  absorbs  its  nutriment  through 
analogous  organs  in  the  intestines,  called  lacteals. 

Whitman's  expression  "the  slumbering  and  liquid 
trees"  often  comes  to  my  mind.  They  are  the  words 
of  a  poet  who  sees  hidden  relations  and  meanings 

9 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

everywhere.  He  knows  how  fluid  and  adaptive  all 
animate  nature  is.  The  trees  are  wrapped  in  a 
kind  of  slumber  in  winter,  and  they  are  reservoirs 
of  living  currents  in  summer.  If  all  living  bodies 
came  originally  out  of  the  sea,  they  brought  a  big 
dower  of  the  sea  with  them.  The  human  body 
is  mainly  a  few  pinches  of  earth  salts  held  in 
solution  by  several  gallons  of  water.  The  ashes 
of  the  Hving  tree  bulk  small  in  comparison  with 
the  amount  of  water  it  holds.  Yes,  "the  slum- 
bering and  Hquid  trees."  They  awaken  from 
their  slumber  in  the  spring,  the  scales  fall  from 
their  buds,  the  fountains  within  them  are  un- 
sealed, and  they  again  become  streams  of  living 
energy,  breaking  into  leaf  and  bloom  and  fruit 
under  the  magic  of  the  sun's  rays. 


n 

THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

I 

How  closely  every  crack  and  corner  of  nature  is 
packed  with  life,  especially  in  our  northern  tem- 
perate zone!  I  was  impressed  with  this  fact  when 
during  several  June  days  I  was  occupied  with 
road-mending  on  the  farm  where  I  was  born.  '  To 
open  up  the  loosely  piled  and  decaying  laminated 
rocks  was  to  open  up  a  little  biological  and  zoologi- 
cal museum,  so  many  of  our  smaller  forms  of  life 
harbored  there.  From  chipmunks  to  ants  and 
spiders,  animal  life  flourished.  We  disturbed  the 
chipmunks  in  their  den  a  foot  and  a  half  or  more 
beneath  the  loosely  piled  rocks.  There  were  two 
of  them  in  a  soft,  warm  nest  of  dry,  shredded 
maple-leavesJ  They  did  not  wait  to  be  turned 
out  of  doors,  but  when  they  heard  the  racket  over- 
head bolted  precipitately.  Two  living  together 
surprised  me,  as  heretofore  I  had  never  known 
but  one  in  a  den.  Near  them  a  milk  snake  had 
stowed  himself  away  in  a  crevice,  and  in  the  little 
earthquake  which  we  set  up  got  badly  crushed. 
Two  little  red-bellied  snakes  about  one  foot  long 
had  also  found  harbor  there. 

The  ants  rushed  about  in  great  consternation 

11 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

when  their  eggs  were  suddenly  exposed.  In  fact, 
there  was  live  natural  history  under  every  stone 
about  us.  Some  children  brought  me  pieces  of 
stone,  which  they  picked  up  close  by,  which 
sheltered  a  variety  of  cocoon-building  spiders. 
One  small,  dark-striped  spider  was  carrying  about 
its  ball  of  eggs,  the  size  of  a  large  pea,  attached 
to  the  hind  part  of  its  body.  This  became  de- 
tached, when  she  seized  it  eagerly  and  bore  it 
about  held  between  her  legs.  Another  fragment 
of  stone,  the  size  of  one's  hand,  sheltered  the 
chrysalis  of  some  species  of  butterfly  which  was 
attached  to  it  at  its  tail.  It  was  surprising  to 
see  this  enshrouded  creature,  blind  and  deaf, 
wriggle  and  thrash  about  as  if  threatening  us  with 
its  wrath  for  invading  its  sanctuary.  One  would 
about  as  soon  expect  to  see  an  egg  protest. 

Thus  the  naturalist  finds  his  pleasures  every- 
where. Every  solitude  to  him  is  peopled.  Every 
morning  or  evening  walk  yields  him  a  harvest  to 
eye  or  ear. 

The  born  naturalist  is  one  of  the  most  lucky 
men  in  the  world.  Winter  or  summer,  rain  or 
shine,  at  home  or  abroad,  walking  or  riding,  his 
pleasures  are  always  near  at  hand.  The  great 
book  of  nature  is  open  before  him  and  he  has  only 
to  turn  the  leaves. 

A  friend  sitting  on  my  porch  in  a  hickory 
rocking-chair  the  other  day  was  annoyed  by  one 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

of  our  small  solitary  wasps  that  seemed  to  want 
to  occupy  the  chair.  It  held  a  small  worm  in 
its  legs.  She  would  "shoo"  it  away,  only  to  see 
it  back  in  a  few  seconds.  I  assured  her  that  it 
did  not  want  to  sting  her,  but  that  its  nest  was 
somewhere  in  the  chair.  And,  sure  enough,  as 
soon  as  she  quieted  down,  it  entered  a  small 
opening  in  the  end  of  one  of  the  chair  arms,  and 
deposited  its  worm,  and  presently  was  back  with 
another,  and  then  a  third  and  a  fourth;  and 
before  the  day  was  done  it  came  with  little  pellets 
of  mud  and  sealed  up  the  opening. 

II 

My  morning  walk  up  to  the  beech  wood  often 
brings  me  new  knowledge  and  new  glimpses  of 
nature.  This  morning  I  saw  a  hummingbird 
taking  its  bath  in  the  big  dewdrops  on  a  small 
ash-tree.  I  have  seen  other  birds  bathe  in  the 
dew  or  raindrops  on  tree  foliage,  but  did  not 
before  know  that  the  hummer  bathed  at  all. 

I  also  discovered  that  the  webs  of  the  little 
spiders  in  the  road,  when  saturated  with  moisture, 
as  they  were  from  the  early  fog  this  morning, 
exhibit  prismatic  tints.  Every  thread  of  the  web 
was  strung  with  minute  spherules  of  moisture, 
and  they  displayed  all  the  tints  of  the  rainbow. 
In  each  of  them  I  saw  one  abutment  of  a  tiny 
rainbow.     When  I  stepped  a  pace  or  two  to  the 

13 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

other  side,  I  saw  the  other  abutment.  Of  course 
I  could  not  see  the  completed  bow  in  so  small  an 
area.  These  fragments  are  as  unapproachable  as 
the  bow  in  the  clouds.  I  also  saw  that  where  a 
suspended  dewdrop  becomes  a  jewel,  or  displays 
rainbow  tints,  you  can  see  only  one  at  a  time — to 
the  right  or  left  of  you.  It  also  is  a  fragment  of 
a  rainbow.  Those  persons  who  report  beholding  a 
great  display  of  prismatic  effects  in  the  foliage 
of  trees,  or  in  the  grass  after  a  shower,  are  not 
to  be  credited.  You  may  see  the  drops  glistening 
in  the  sun  like  glass  beads,  but  they  will  not  ex- 
hibit prismatic  tints.  In  only  one  at  a  time  will 
you  see  rainbow  tints.  Change  your  position,  and 
you  may  see  another,  but  never  a  great  display  of 
prismatic  tints  at  one  time. 

In  my  walk  the  other  morning  I  turned  over  a 
stone,  looking  for  spiders  and  ants.  These  I  found, 
and  in  addition  there  were  two  cells  of  one  pf  our 
solitary  leaf-cutters,  which  we  as  boys  called 
**sweat  bees,"  because  they  came  around  us  and 
would  alight  on  our  sweaty  hands  and  arms  as  if 
in  quest  of  salt,  as  they  probably  were.  It  is  about 
the  size  of  a  honey  bee,  of  lighter  color,  and  its 
abdomen  is  yellow  and  very  flexible.  It  carries 
its  pollen  on  its  abdomen  and  not  upon  its  thighs. 
These  cells  were  of  a  greenish-brown  color;  each 
of  them  was  like  a  miniature  barrel  in  which  the 
pollen  with  the  egg  of  the  bee  was  sealed  up. 

14 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

When  the  egg  hatches,  the  grub  finds  a  loaf  of 
bread  at  hand  for  its  nourishment.  These  hltle 
barrels  were  each  headed  up  with  a  dozen  circular 
bits  of  leaves  cut  as  with  a  compass,  exactly 
fitting  the  cylinder,  one  upon  the  other.  The  wall 
of  the  cylinder  was  made  up  of  oblong  cuttings 
from  leaves,  about  half  an  inch  wide,  and  three 
quarters  of  an  inch  long,  a  dozen  of  them  lapped 
over  one  another,  and  fitted  together  in  the  most 
workmanlike  manner. 

In  my  boyhood  I  occasionally  saw  this  bee  cut- 
ting out  her  nesting-material.  Her  mandibles 
worked  like  perfect  shears.  WTien  she  had  cut  out 
her  circular  or  her  oblong  patches,  she  rolled  them 
up,  and,  holding  them  between  her  legs,  flew  away 
with  them.  I  have  seen  her  carry  them  into  little 
openings  in  old  rails,  or  old  posts.  About  the  period 
of  hatching,  I  do  not  know. 

Ill 

Swallows,  in  hawking  through  the  air  for  insects, 
do  not  snap  their  game  up  as  do  the  true  flycatchers. 
Their  mouths  are  little  nets  which  they  drive 
through  the  air  with  the  speed  of  airplanes.  A 
few  mornings  ago  the  air  was  cold,  but  it  contained 
many  gauzy,  fuzzy  insects  from  the  size  of  mos- 
quitoes down  to  gnats.  They  kept  near  the 
ground.  I  happened  to  be  sitting  on  the  sunny 
side  of  a  rock  and  saw  the  swallows  sweep  past. 

15 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

One  came  by  within  ten  feet  of  me  and  drove 
straight  on  to  a  very  conspicuous  insect  which 
disappeared  in  his  open  mouth  in  a  flash.  How 
many  hundreds  or  thousands  of  such  insects  they 
must  devour  each  day!  Then  think  of  how  many 
insects  the  flycatchers  and  warblers  and  other 
insect-eating  birds  must  consume  in  the  course  of 
a  season! 

IV 

We  little  suspect  how  the  woods  and  wayside 
places  swarm  with  life.  We  see  little  of  it  unless 
we  watch  and  wait.  The  wild  creatures  are 
cautious  about  revealing  themselves :  their  enemies 
are  on  the  lookout  for  them.  Certain  woods  at 
night  are  alive  with  flying  squirrels  which,  except 
for  some  accident,  we  never  see  by  day.  Then 
there  are  the  night  prowlers — skunks,  foxes, 
coons,  minks,  and  owls — ^yes,  and  mice. 

The  wild  mice  we  rarely  see.  The  little  shrew 
mole,  which  I  know  is  active  at  night,  I  have  never 
seen  but  once.  I  once  set  a  trap,  called  the  de- 
lusion trap,  in  the  woods  by  some  rocks  where  I 
had  no  reason  to  suspect  there  were  more  mice 
than  elsewhere,  and  two  mornings  later  it  was 
literally  packed  full  of  mice,  half  a  dozen  or  more. 

Turn  over  a  stone  in  the  fields  and  behold 
the  consternation  among  the  small  folk  beneath 
it, — ants,  slugs,  bugs,  worms,  spiders, — all  object- 

16 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

ing  to  the  full  light  of  day,  not  because  their  deeds 
are  evil,  but  because  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
prompts  this  course.  As  I  write  these  sentences,  a 
chipmunk,  who  ha;s  his  den  in  the  bank  by  the  road- 
side near  by,  is  very  busy  storing  up  some  half-ripe 
currants  which  grew  on  a  bush  a  few  yards  away. 
Of  course  the  currants  will  ferment  and  rot,  but 
that  consideration  does  not  disturb  him;  the 
seeds  will  keep,  and  they  are  what  he  is  after.  In 
the  early  summer,  before  any  of  the  nuts  and 
grains  are  ripened,  the  high  cost  of  living  among 
the  lesser  rodents  is  very  great,  and  they  resort  to 
all  sorts  of  makeshifts. 


In  regard  to  this  fullness  of  life  in  the  hidden 
places  of  nature,  Darwin  says  as  much  of  the  world 
as  a  whole; 

Well  may  we  affirm  that  every  part  of  the  world  is 
inhabitable.  Whether  lakes  of  brine  or  those  subter- 
ranean ones  hidden  beneath  volcanic  mountains — warm 
mineral  springs — the  wide  expanse  and  depth  of  the 
ocean,  the  upper  regions  of  the  atmosphere,  and  even 
the  surface  of  perpetual  snow — all  support  organic 
beings. 

Never  before  was  there  such  a  lover  of  natural 
history  as  Darwin.  In  the  earth,  in  the  air,  in  the 
water,  in  the  rocks,  in  the  sand,  in  the  mud— he 
scanned  the  great  biological  record  of  the  globe  as 
it  was  never  scanned  before.  During  the  voyage  of 

17 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  Beagle  he  shirked  no  hardships  to  add  to  his 
stores  of  natural  knowledge.  He  would  leave  the 
comfortable  ship  while  it  was  making  its  surveys, 
and  make  journeys  of  hundreds  of  miles  on  horse- 
back through  rough  and  dangerous  regions  to  glean 
new  facts.  Grass  and  water  for  his  mules,  and  geol- 
ogy or  botany  or  zoology  or  anthropology  for  him- 
self, and  he  was  happy.  At  a  great  altitude  in  the 
Andes  the  people  had  shortness  of  breath  which 
they  called  "puna,"  and  they  ate  onions  to  correct 
it.  Darwin  says,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "For  my 
part  I  found  nothing  so  good  as  the  fossil  shells." 
His  Beagle  voyage  is  a  regular  magazine  of 
natural-history  knowledge.  Was  any  country 
ever  before  so  searched  and  sifted  for  its  biological 
facts?  In  lakes  and  rivers,  in  swamps,  in  woods, 
everywhere  his  insatiable  eye  penetrated.  One 
re-reads  him  always  with  a  different  purpose  in 
view.  If  you  happen  to  be  interested  in  insects, 
you  read  him  for  that;  if  in  birds,  you  read  him 
for  that;  if  in  mammals,  in  fossils,  in  reptiles,  in 
volcanoes,  in  anthropology,  you  read  him  with 
each  of  these  subjects  in  mind.  I  recently  had  in 
mind  the  problem  of  the  soaring  condor,  and  I 
re-read  him  for  that,  and,  sure  enough,  he  had 
studied  and  mastered  that  subject,  too.  If  you 
are  interested  in  seeing  how  the  biological  char- 
acteristics of  the  two  continents,  North  and  South 
America,  agree  or  contrast  with  each  other,  you 

18 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

will  find  what  you  wish  to  know.  You  will  learn 
that  in  South  America  the  lightning-bugs  and  glow- 
worms of  many  kinds  are  the  same  as  in  North 
America;  that  the  beetle,  or  elator,  when  placed 
upon  its  back,  snaps  itself  up  in  the  air  and  falls 
\ipon  its  feet,  as  our  species  does;  that  the  obscene 
fungus,  or  Phallus,  taints  the  tropical  forests,  as  a 
similar  species  at  times  taints  our  dooryards  and 
pasture-borders;  and  that  the  mud-dauber  wasps 
stuff  their  clay  cells  with  half -dead  spiders  for  their 
young,  just  as  in  North  America.  Of  course 
there  are  new  species  of  animal  and  plant  life,  but 
not  many.  The  influence  of  environment  in  modi- 
fying species  is  constantly  in  his  mind. 

VI 

The  naturalist  can  content  himself  with  a  day  of 
little  things.  If  he  can  read  only  a  word  of  one  syl- 
lable in  the  book  of  nature,  he  will  make  the  most  of 
that.  I  read  such  a  word  the  other  morning  when 
I  perceived,  when  watching  a  young  but  fully 
fledged  junco,  or  snowbird,  that  its  markings 
were  like  those  of  the  vesper  sparrow.  The  young 
of  birds  always  for  a  brief  period  repeat  the 
markings  of  the  birds  of  the  par.ent  stem  from  which 
they  are  an  offshoot.  Thus,  the  young  of  our 
robins  have  speckled  breasts,  betraying  their 
thrush  kinship.  And  the  young  junco  shows,  in 
its  striped  appearance  of  breast  and  back,  and  the 

19 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

lateral  T\'hite  quills  in  the  tail,  its  kinship  to  the 
grass  finch  or  vesper  sparrow.  The  slate-color 
soon  obliterates  most  of  these  signs,  but  the  white 
quills  remain.  It  has  departed  from  the  nesting- 
habits  of  its  forbears.  The  vesper  sparrow  nests 
upon  the  ground  in  the  open  fields,  but  the  junco 
chooses  a  mossy  bank  or  tussock  by  the  roadside, 
or  in  the  woods,  and  constructs  a  very  artistic 
west  of  dry  grass  and  hair  which  is  so  well  hidden 
'3iat  the  passer-by  seldom  detects  it. 

Another  small  word  I  read  about  certain  of  the 
rocks  in  my  native  Catskills,  a  laminated,  blue- 
gray  sandstone,  that  when  you  have  split  them 
open  with  steel  wedges  and  a  big  hammer,  or  blown 
them  up  with  dynamite,  instead  of  the  gray  fresh 
surface  of  the  rock  greeting  you,  it  is  often  a  surface 
of  red  mud,  as  if  the  surface  had  been  enameled 
or  electrotyped  with  mud.  It  appears  to  date  from 
the  first  muddy  day  of  creation.  I  have  such 
a  one  for  my  doorstone  at  Woodchuck  Lodge.  It 
is  amusing  to  see  the  sweepers  and  scrubbers  of 
doorstones  fall  upon  it  with  soap  and  hot  water, 
and  utterly  fail  to  make  any  impression  upon  it. 
Nowhere  else  have  I  seen  rocks  casehardened  with 
primal  mud.  The  fresh-water  origin  of  the  Cat- 
skill  rocks  no  doubt  in  some  way  accounts  for  it. 

VII 

We  are  all  interested  students  of  the  weather,  but 

20 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  naturalist  studies  it  for  some  insight  into  the 
laws  which  govern  it.  One  season  I  made  my  repu- 
tation as  a  weather  prophet  by  predicting  on  the 
first  day  of  December  a  very  severe  winter.  It 
was  an  easy  guess.  I  saw  in  Detroit  a  bird  from 
^the  far  north,  a  bird  I  had  never  before  seen,  the 
Bohemian  waxwing,  or  chatterer.  It  breeds  above 
the  Arctic  Circle  and  is  common  to  both  hemi- 
spheres. I  said.  When  the  Arctic  birds  come  down, 
be  sure  there  is  a  cold  wave  behind  them.  And 
so  it  proved. 

When  the  birds  fail  to  give  one  a  hint  of  the 
probable  character  of  the  coming  winter,  what 
reliable  signs  remain  .^^  These  remain:  When 
December  is  marked  by  sudden  and  violent  ex- 
tremes of  heat  and  cold,  the  winter  will  be  broken; 
the  cold  will  not  hold.  I  have  said  elsewhere  that 
the  hum  of  the  bee  in  December  is  the  requiem  of 
winter.  But  when  the  season  is  very  evenly 
spaced,  the  cold  slowly  and  steadily  increasing 
through  November  and  December,  no  hurry,  no 
violence,  then  be  prepared  for  a  snug  winter. 

As  to  wet  and  dry  summers,  one  can  always  be 
guided  by  the  rainfall  on  the  Pacific  coast;  a 
shortage  on  the  western  coast  means  an  excess  on 
the  eastern.  For  four  or  five  years  past  California 
has  been  short  of  its  rainfall ;  so  much  so  that  quite 
general  alarm  is  felt  over  the  gradual  shrinkage  of 
their  stored-up  supplies,  the  dams  and  reservoirs; 

21 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

and  during  the  summer  seasons  the  parts  of  New 
England  and  New  York  with  which  I  am  ac- 
quainted have  had  very  wet  seasons — floods  in 
midsummer,  and  full  springs  and  wells  at  all  times. 
The  droughts  have  been  temporary  and  local. 

We  say,  **As  fickle  as  the  weather,"  but  the 
meteorological  laws  are  pretty  well  defined.  All 
signs  fail  in  a  drought,  and  all  signs  fail  in  a  wet 
season.  At  one  time  the  south  wind  brings  no 
rain,  at  another  time  the  north  and  northwest 
winds  do  bring  rain.  The  complex  of  conditions 
over  a  continental  area  of  rivers  and  lakes  and 
mountain-chains  is  too  vast  for  us  to  decipher;  it 
inheres  in  the  nature  of  things.  It  is  one  of  the 
potencies  and  possibilities  which  matter  possesses. 
We  can  take  no  step  beyond  that. 

VIII 

There  seems  to  me  to  be  false  reasoning  in  the 
argument  from  analogy  which  William  James  uses 
in  his  lectures  on  *'Human  Immortality.'*  The 
brain,  he  admits,  is  the  organ  of  the  mind,  but 
may  only  sustain  the  relation  to  it,  he  says,  which 
the  wire  sustains  to  the  electric  current  which 
it  transmits,  or  which  the  pipe  sustains  to  the  water 
which  it  conveys. 

Now  the  source  and  origin  of  the  electric  current 
is  outside  the  wire  that  transmits  it,  and  it  could 
sustain  no  other  than  a  transient  relation  to  any 

22 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

outside  material  through  which  it  passed.  But 
if  we  know  anything,  we  know  that  the  human  mind 
or  spirit  is  a  vital  part  of  the  human  body;  its 
source  is  in  the  brain  and  nervous  system;  hence, 
it  and  the  organ  through  which  it  is  manifested 
are  essentially  one. 

The  analogy  of  the  brain  to  the  battery  or  dyna- 
mo in  which  the  current  originates  is  the  only 
logical  or  permissible  one. 

IX 

Maeterlinck  wrote  wisely  when  he  said: 

The  insect  does  not  belong  to  our  world.  The  other 
animals,  the  plants  even,  notwithstanding  their  dumb 
Hfe,  and  the  great  secrets  which  they  cherish,  do  not  seem 
wholly  foreign  to  us.  In  spite  of  all  we  feel  a  sort  of 
earthly  brotherhood  with  them.  .  .  .  There  is  some- 
thing, on  the  other  hand,  about  the  insect  that  does  not 
belong  to  the  habits,  the  ethics,  the  psychology  of  our 
globe.  One  would  be  inclined  to  say  that  the  insect 
comes  from  another  planet,  more  monstrous,  more 
energetic,  more  insane,  more  atrocious,  more  infernal 
than  our  own. 

Certainly  more  cruel  and  monstrous  than  our  own. 
Among  the  spiders,  for  instance,  the  female  eats 
the  male  and  often  devours  her  own  young.  The 
scorpion  does  the  same  thing.  I  know  of  nothing 
like  it  among  our  land  animals  outside  the  insect 
world. 

The  insects  certainly  live  in  a  wonderland  of 

23 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

which  we  have  Httle  conception.     All  our  powers 
are  tremendously  exaggerated  in  these  little  people. 
Their  power  makes  them  acquainted  with  the  inner 
molecular  constitution  of  matter  far  more  inti- 
mately than  we  can  attain  to  by  our  coarse  chemical 
analysis.     Our  world   is   agitated   by   vibrations, 
coarse  and  fine,  of  which  our  senses  can  take  in 
only    the    slower    ones.     If    they    exceed    three 
thousand  a  second,  they  become  too  shrill  for  our 
ears.     It  is  thought  that  the  world  of  sound  with 
the   insects   begins   where   ours   leaves   off.     The 
drums  and  tubes  of  insects'  ears  are  very  minute. 
What  would  to  us  be  a  continuous  sound  is  to  them 
a   series   of   separate   blows.     We   begin   to   hear 
blows  as  continuous  sounds  when  they  amount  to 
about  thirty  a  second.     The  house-fly  has  about 
four  thousand  eye-lenses;    the  cabbage  butterfly, 
and   the   dragon-fly,   about   seventeen   thousand; 
and    some    species    of    beetles    have    twenty-five 
thousand.     We  cannot  begin  to  think  in  what  an 
agitated  world  the  insect  lives,  thrilling  and  vibrat- 
ing to  a  degree  that  would  drive  us  insane.     If  we 
possessed  the  same  microscopic  gifts,  how  w^ould 
the  aspect  of  the  world  be  changed!     We  might 
see  a  puff  of  smoke  as  a  flock  of  small  blue  butter- 
flies,  or  hear  the  hum   of   a    mosquito    as    the 
blast  of  a  trumpet.     On  the  other  hand,  so  much 
that  disturbs  us  must  escape  the  insects,  because 
their  senses  are  too  fine  to  take  it  in.     Doubtless 

ry 
^ .        tate  Collet© 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

they  do  not  hear  the  thunder   or  feel  the  earth- 
quake. 

The  insects  are  much  more  sensitive  to  heat  and 
cold  than  we  are,  and  for  reasons.  The  number 
of  waves  in  the  ether  that  gives  us  the  sensation  of 
heat  is  three  or  four  million  millions  a  second.  The 
number  of  tremors  required  to  produce  red  light  is 
estimated  at  four  hundred  and  seventy-four  milHon 
millions  a  second,  and  for  the  production  of  violet 
light,  six  hundred  and  ninety-nine  million  millions 
a  second.  No  doubt  the  insects  react  to  all  these 
different  degrees  of  vibration.  Those  marvelous 
instruments  called  antennae  seem  to  put  them  in 
touch  with  a  world  of  which  we  are  quite  oblivious. 


To  how  many  things  our  lives  have  been  compared ! 
— to  a  voyage,  with  its  storms  and  adverse  currents 
and  safe  haven  at  last;  to  a  day  with  its  morning, 
noon,  and  night;  to  the  seasons  with  their  spring, 
summer,  autumn,  and  winter;  to  a  game,  a  school, 
a  battle. 

In  one  of  his  addresses  to  workingmen  Huxley 
compared  life  to  a  game  of  chess.  We  must  learn 
the  names  and  the  values  and  the  moves  of  each 
piece,  and  all  the  rules  of  the  game  if  we  hope 
to  play  it  successfully.  The  chessboard  is  the 
world,  the  pieces  are  the  phenomena  of  the  universe, 
the  rules  of  the  game  are  what  we  call  the  laws  of 

25 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

nature.  But  it  may  be  questioned  if  the  compari- 
son is  a  happy  one.  Life  is  not  a  game  in  this  sense, 
a  diversion,  an  aside,  or  a  contest  for  victory  over 
an  opponent,  except  in  isolated  episodes  now  and 
then.  Mastery  of  chess  will  not  help  in  the  mastery 
of  life.  Life  is  a  day's  work,  a  struggle  where  the 
forces  to  be  used  and  the  forces  to  be  overcome  are 
much  more  vague  and  varied  and  intangible  than 
are  those  of  the  chessboard.  Life  is  cooperation 
with  other  lives.  We  win  when  we  help  others  to 
win.  I  suppose  business  is  more  often  like  a  game 
than  is  life — ^your  gain  is  often  the  other  man's 
loss,  and  you  deliberately  aim  to  outwit  your 
rivals  and  competitors.  But  in  a  sane,  normal 
life  there  is  little  that  suggests  a  game  of  any  kind. 

We  must  all  have  money,  or  its  equivalent. 
There  are  the  three  things — money,  goods,  labor 
— and  the  greatest  of  these  is  labor.  Labor  is  the 
sum  of  all  values.  The  value  of  things  is  the  labor 
it  requires  to  produce  or  to  obtain  them.  Were 
gold  plentiful  and  silver  scarce,  the  latter  would  be 
the  more  precious.  The  men  at  the  plough  and 
the  hoe  and  in  the  mines  of  coal  and  iron  stand 
first.  These  men  win  from  nature  what  we  all  must 
have,  and  these  things  are  none  of  them  in  the  hands 
or  under  the  guardianship  of  some  one  who  is 
trying  to  keep  us  from  obtaining  them,  or  is  aiming 
to  take  our  aids  and  resources  from  us. 

The  chess  simile  has  only  a  rhetorical  value. 

26 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

The  London  workingmen  to  whom  Huxley  spoke 
would  look  around  them  in  vain  to  find  in  their 
problems  of  life  anything  akin  to  a  game  of  chess, 
or  for  any  fruitful  suggestion  in  the  idea.  They 
were  probably  mechanics,  tradesmen,  artisans, 
teamsters,  boatmen,  painters,  and  so  on,  and  knew 
through  experience  the  forces  with  which  they  had 
to  deal.  But  how  many  persons  who  succeed  in 
life  have  any  such  expert  knowledge  of  the  forces 
and  conditions  with  which  they  have  to  deal,  as 
two  chess-players  have  of  the  pawns  and  knights 
and  bishops  and  queens  of  the  chessboard? 

Huxley  was  nearly  always  impressive  and  con- 
vincing, and  there  was  vastly  more  logical  force  in 
his  figures  than  in  those  of  most  writers. 

Life  may  more  truly  be  compared  to  a  river  that 
has  its  source  in  a  mountain  or  hillside  spring, 
with  its  pure  and  sparking  or  foaming  and  noisy 
youth,  then  its  quieter  and  stronger  and  larger 
volume,  and  then  its  placid  and  gently  moving  cur- 
rent to  the  sea.  Blessed  is  the  life  that  is  self -purify- 
ing, like  the  moving  waters;  that  lends  itself  to 
many  noble  uses,  never  breaking  out  of  bonds  and 
becoming  a  destructive  force. 

XI 

I  HAD  a  letter  the  other  day  from  a  man  who  wanted 
to  know  why  the  meadow,  or  field,  mice  gnawed  or 
barked  the  apple-trees  when  there  was  a  deep 

27 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

coverlid  of  snow  upon  the  ground.  Was  it  because 
they  found  it  difficult  to  get  up  through  the  deep, 
frozen  snow  to  the  surface  to  get  seeds  to  eat?  He 
did  not  seem  to  know  that  meadow  mice  are  not 
seed-eaters,  but  that  they  live  on  grass  and  roots 
and  keep  well  hidden  beneath  the  ground  during  the 
day,  when  there  is  a  deep  fall  of  snow  coming  up  out 
of  their  dens  and  retreats  and  leading  a  free  holiday 
life  beneath  the  snow,  free  from  the  danger  of  cats, 
foxes,  owls,  and  hawks.  Life  then  becomes  a  sort 
of  picnic.  They  build  new  nests  on  the  surface 
of  the  ground  and  form  new  runways,  and  disport 
themselves  apparently  in  a  festive  mood.  The 
snow  is  their  protection.  They  bark  the  trees  and 
take  their  time.  When  the  snow  is  gone,  their 
winter  picnic  is  at  an  end,  and  they  retreat  to  their 
dens  in  the  ground  and  beneath  flat  stones,  and  lead 
once  more  the  life  of  fear. 

XII 

Sitting  on  my  porch  recently,  wrapped  in  my 
blanket,  recovering  from  a  slight  indisposition,  I 
was  in  a  mood  to  be  interested  in  the  everyday 
aspects  of  nature  before  me — in  the  white  and 
purple  lilacs,  in  the  maple-leaves  nearly  full  grown, 
in  the  pendent  fringe  of  the  yellowish-white  bloom 
of  the  chestnut  and  oak,  in  the  new  shoots  of  the 
grapevines,  and  so  forth.  All  these  things  formed 
only  a  setting  or  background  for  the  wild  life  near  by. 

28 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

The  birds  are  the  little  people  that  peep  out  at 
me,  or  pause  and  regard  me  curiously  in  this  great 
temple  of  trees, — wrens,  chippies,  robins,  bluebirds, 
catbirds,  redstarts,  and  now  and  then  rarer  visi- 
tants. A  few  days  earlier,  for  a  moment,  a  mourn- 
ing ground  warbler  suddenly  appeared  around  the 
corner,  on  the  ground,  at  the  foot  of  the  steps,  and 
glanced  hastily  up  at  me.  When  I  arose  and  looked 
over  the  railing,  it  had  gone.  Then  the  speckled 
Canada  warbler  came  in  the  lilac  bushes  and  syringa 
branches  and  gave  me  several  good  views.  The 
bay-breasted  warbler  was  reported  in  the  ever- 
greens up  by  the  stone  house,  but  he  failed  to  report 
to  me  here  at  *'The  Nest."  The  female  redstart, 
however,  came  several  times  to  the  gravel  walk  be- 
low me,  evidently  looking  for  material  to  begin  her 
nest.  And  the  wren,  the  irrepressible  house  wren, 
was  and  is  in  evidence  every  few  minutes,  busy  car- 
rying nesting-material  into  the  box  on  the  corner  of 
the  veranda.  How  intense  and  emphatic  she  is! 
And  the  male,  how  he  throbs  and  palpitates  with 
song !  Yesterday  an  interloper  appeared.  He  or  she 
climbed  the  post  by  the  back  way,  as  it  were,  and 
hopped  out  upon  the  top  of  the  box  and  paused,  as 
if  to  see  that  the  coast  was  clear.  He  acted  as  if 
he  felt  himself  an  intruder.  Quick  as  a  flash  there 
was  a  brown  streak  from  the  branch  of  a  mai)le 
thirty  feet  away,  and  the  owner  of  the  box  was  after 
him.   The  culprit  did  not  stop  to  argue  the  case,  but 

29 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

was  off,  hotly  pursued.  I  must  not  forget  the  pair  of 
wood  thrushes  that  are  building  a  nest  in  a  maple 
fifty  or  more  feet  away.  How  I  love  to  see  them 
on  the  ground  at  my  feet,  every  motion  and  gesture 
like  music  to  the  eye!  The  head  and  neck  of  the 
male  fairly  glows,  and  there  is  something  fine  and 
manly  about  his  speckled  breast. 

A  pair  of  catbirds  have  a  nest  in  the  barberry 
bushes  at  the  south  end  of  the  house,  and  are  in 
evidence  at  all  hours.  But  when  the  nest  is  com- 
pleted, and  the  laying  of  eggs  begins,  they  keep  out 
of  the  public  eye  as  much  as  possible.  From  the 
front  of  the  stage  they  retreat  behind  the  curtain. 

One  day  as  I  sat  here  I  heard  the  song  of  the 
olive-backed  thrush  down  in  the  currant-bushes 
below  me.  Instantly  I  was  transported  to  the 
deep  woods  and  the  trout  brooks  of  my  native  Cats- 
kills.  I  heard  the  murmuring  water  and  felt  the 
woodsy  coolness  of  those  retreats — such  magic  hath 
associative  memories!  A  moment  before  a  yellow- 
throated  vireo  sang  briefly  in  the  maple,  a  harsh 
note;  and  the  oriole  with  its  insistent  call  added  to 
the  disquieting  sounds.  I  have  no  use  for  the 
oriole.  He  has  not  one  musical  note,  and  in  grape 
time  his  bill  is  red,  or  purple,  with  the  blood  of  our 
'  grapes. 

But  the  most  of  these  little  people  are  my  bene- 
factors, and  add  another  ray  of  sunshine  to  the 
May  day.     I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  spectacle  of 

30 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  A  NATURALIST 

that  rare  little  warbler  peeping  around  the  corner  of 
the  porch,  like  a  little  fairy,  and  then  vanishing. 

The  mere  studying  of  the  birds,  seeking  mere 
knowledge  of  them,  is  not  enough.  You  must  live 
with  the  birds,  so  to  speak;  have  daily  and  seasonal 
associations  with  them  before  they  come  to  mean 
much  to  you.  Then,  as  they  Hnger  about  your 
house  or  your  camp,  or  as  you  see  them  in  your 
walks,  they  are  a  part  of  your  life,  and  help  give 
tone  and  color  to  your  day. 


Ill 

THE  FLIGHT  OF  BIRDS 

To  what  widely  different  use  birds  put  their  power 
of  flight !  To  the  great  mass  of  them  it  is  simply  a 
means  of  locomotion,  of  getting  from  one  point  to 
another.  A  small  minority  put  their  wing-power 
to  more  ideal  uses,  as  the  lark  when  he  claps  his 
wdngs  at  heaven's  gate,  and  the  ruffed  grouse  when 
he  drums;  even  the  woodcock  has  some  other  use 
for  his  wings  than  to  get  from  one  point  to  another. 
Listen  to  his  flight  song  in  the  April  twilight  up 
against  the  sky. 

Our  small  hawks  use  their  power  of  flight  mainly 
to  catch  their  prey,  as  does  the  swallow  skimming 
the  air  all  day  on  tireless  wing,  but  some  of  the  other 
hawks,  such  as  our  red-tailed  hawk,  climb  their 
great  spirals  apparently  with  other  motives  than 
those  which  relate  to  their  daily  fare.  The  crow 
has  little  other  use  for  his  wings  than  to  gad  about 
like  a  busy  politician  from  one  neighborhood  to 
another.  In  Florida  I  have  seen  large  flocks  of 
the  white  ibis  performing  striking  evolutions  high 
up  against  the  sky,  evidently  expressive  of  the 
gay  and  festive  feeling  begotten  by  the  mating 
instinct. 

The  most  beautiful  flyer  we  ever  see  against  our 

32 


THE  FLIGHT  OF  BHIDS 

skies  is  the  unsavory  buzzard.  He  is  the  winged 
embodiment  of  grace,  ease,  and  leisure.  Judging 
from  appearances  alone,  he  is  the  most  disinterested 
of  all  the  winged  creatures  we  see.  He  rides  the 
airy  billows  as  if  only  to  enjoy  his  mastery  over 
them.  He  is  as  calm  and  unhurried  as  the  orlis  in 
their  courses.  His  great  circles  and  spirals  have 
a  kind  of  astronomic  completeness.  That  all 
this  power  of  wing  and  grace  of  motion  should  be 
given  to  an  unclean  bird,  to  a  repulsive  scavenger, 
is  one  of  the  anomalies  of  nature.  He  does  not  need 
to  hurry  or  conceal  his  approach;  what  he  is  after 
cannot  flee  or  hide;  he  has  no  enemies;  nothing 
wants  him;  and  he  is  at  peace  with  all  the  world. 
The  great  condor  of  South  America,  in  rising  from 
the  ground,  always  faces  the  wind.  It  is  often 
captured  by  tempting  it  to  gorge  itself  in  a  compara- 
tively narrow  space.  But  if  a  strong  enough  wind 
were  blowing  at  such  times,  it  could  quickly  rise 
over  the  barrier.  Darwin  says  he  watched  a 
condor  high  in  the  air  describing  its  huge  circles  for 
six  hours  without  once  flapping  its  wings.  He  says 
that,  if  the  bird  wished  to  descend,  the  wings  were 
for  a  moment  collapsed;  and  when  again  expanded, 
with  an  altered  inclination,  the  momentum  gained 
by  the  rapid  descent  seemed  to  urge  the  bird  up- 
wards with  the  even  and  steady  movement  of  a 
paper  kite.  In  the  case  of  any  bird  soaring,  its 
motion  must  be  sufficiently  rapid  for  the  action  of 

33 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  inclined  surface  of  its  body  on  the  atmosphere 
to  counterbalance  its  gravity.  The  force  to  keep 
up  the  momentum  of  a  body  moving  in  a  horizontal 
plane  in  the  air  (in  which  there  is  so  little  friction) 
cannot  be  great,  and  this  force  is  all  that  is  wanted. 
The  movement  of  the  neck  and  body  of  the  condor, 
we  must  suppose,  is  sufficient  for  this.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  truly  wonderful  and  beautiful  to 
see  so  great  a  bird,  hour  after  hour,  without  any 
apparent  exertion,  wheeling  and  gliding  over  moun- 
tain and  river. 

The  airplane  has  a  propelling  power  in  its  motor, 
and  it  shifts  its  wings  to  take  advantage  of  the 
currents.  The  buzzard  and  condor  do  the  same 
thing.  They  are  living  airplanes,  and  their  power 
is  so  evenly  and  subtly  distributed  and  applied, 
that  the  trick  of  it  escapes  the  eye.  But  of  course 
they  avail  themselves  of  the  lifting  power  of  the 
air-currents. 

All  birds  know  how  to  use  their  wings  to  propel 
themselves  through  the  air,  but  the  mechanism  of 
the  act  we  may  not  be  able  to  analyze.  I  do  not 
know  how  a  butterfly  propels  itself  against  a  breeze 
with  its  quill-less  wings,  but  we  know  that  it  does 
do  it.  As  its  wings  are  neither  convex  nor  concave, 
like  a  bird's,  one  would  think  that  the  upward  and 
downward  strokes  would  neutralize  each  other; 
but  they  do  not.  Strong  winds  often  carry  them 
out  over  large  bodies  of  w^ater;  but  such  a  master 

34 


THE  FLIGHT  OF  BHIDS 

flyer  as  the  monarch  beats  its  way  back  to  shore, 
and,  indeed,  the  monarch  habitually  flies  long  dis- 
tances over  salt  water  when  migrating  along  our 
seacoast  in  spring  and  fall. 

At  the  moment  of  writing  these  paragraphs,  I 
saw  a  hen-hawk  flap  heavily  by,  pursued  by  a 
kingbird.  The  air  was  phenomenally  still,  not  a 
leaf  stirred,  and  the  hawk  was  compelled  to  beat 
his  wings  vigorously.  No  soaring  now,  no  mount- 
ing heavenward,  as  I  have  seen  him  mount  till  his 
petty  persecutor  grew  dizzy  with  the  height  and 
returned  to  earth.  But  the  next  day,  with  a  fairly 
good  breeze  blowing,  I  watched  two  hawks  for 
many  minutes  climbing  their  spiral  stairway  to  the 
skies,  till  they  became  very  small  objects  against  the 
clouds,  and  not  once  did  they  flap  their  wings! 
Then  one  of  them  turned  toward  the  mountain-top 
and  sailed  straight  into  the  face  of  the  wind,  till 
he  was  probably  over  his  mate  or  young,  when,  with 
half -folded  wings,  he  shot  down  into  the  tree-tops 
like  an  arrow. 

In  regard  to  powers  of  flight,  the  birds  of  the 
air  may  be  divided  into  three  grand  classes:  those 
which  use  their  wings  simply  to  transport  them- 
selves from  one  place  to  another,— the  same  use  we 
put  our  legs  to,— those  which  climb  the  heavens 
to  attain  a  wide  lookout,  either  for  the  pleasure  of 
soaring,  or  to  gain  a  vantage-point  from  which  to 
scan  a  wide  territory  in  search  of  food  or  prey, 

35 


UNDER  THE  IVIAPLES 

and  those  which  feed  as  they  fly.  Most  of  our 
common  birds  are  examples  of  the  first  class. 
Our  hawks  and  buzzards  are  examples  of  the 
second  class.  Swallows,  nighthawks,  and  some  sea- 
birds  are  examples  of  the  third  class.  A  few  of  our 
birds  use  their  wings  to  gain  an  elevation  from  which 
to  deliver  their  songs — as  the  larks,  and  some  of  the 
finches;  but  the  robins  and  the  sparrows  and  the 
warblers  and  the  woodpeckers  are  always  going 
somewhere.  The  hawks  and  the  buzzards  are, 
comparatively  speaking,  birds  of  leisure. 

Every  bird  and  beast  is  a  master  in  the  use  of 
its  own  tools  and  weapons.  We  who  look  on  from 
the  outside  marvel  at  their  skill.  Here  is  the 
carpenter  bumble-bee  hovering  and  darting  about 
the  verge-board  of  my  porch-roof  as  I  write  this. 
It  darts  swiftly  this  way  and  that,  and  now  and 
then  pauses  in  midair,  surrounded  by  a  blur  of 
whirring  wings,  as  often  does  the  hummingbird. 
How  it  does  it,  I  do  not  know.  I  cannot  count  or 
distinguish  the  separate  stroke  of  its  wings.  At 
the  same  time,  the  chimney  swifts  sweep  by  me 
like  black  arrows,  on  wings  apparently  as  stiff  as 
if  made  of  tin  or  sheet-iron,  now  beating  the  air, 
now  sailing.  In  some  way  they  suggest  winged 
gimlets.  How  thin  and  scimitar-like  their  wings 
are !  They  are  certainly  masters  of  their  own  craft. 

In  general,  birds  in  flight  bring  the  wings  as  far 
below  the  body  as  they  do  above  it.    Note  the 

36 


THE  FLIGHT  OF  BHIDS 

crow  flapping  his  way  through  the  air.  He  is  a 
heavy  flyer,  but  can  face  a  pretty  strong  wind.  Hia 
wings  probably  move  through  an  arc  of  about 
ninety  degrees.  The  phoebe  flies  with  a  peculiar 
snappy,  jerky  flight;  its  relative  the  kingbird, 
with  a  mincing  and  hovering  flight;  it  tiptoes 
through  the  air.  The  woodpeckers  gallop,  alter- 
nately closing  and  spreading  their  wings.  The 
ordinary  flight  of  the  goldfinch  is  a  very  marked 
undulatory  flight;  a  section  of  it,  the  rise  and  the 
fall,  would  probably  measure  fifty  feet.  The 
bird  goes  half  that  distance  or  more  with  wings 
closed.  This  is  the  flight  the  male  indulges  in 
within  hearing  distance  of  his  brooding  mate. 
During  the  love  season  he  occasionally  gives  way 
to  an  ecstatic  flight.  This  is  a  level  flight,  per- 
formed on  round,  open  wings,  which  beat  the  air 
vertically.  This  flight  of  ecstasy  during  the  song 
season  is  common  to  many  of  our  birds.  I  have 
seen  even  the  song  sparrow  indulge  in  it,  rising  fifty 
feet  or  more  and  delivering  its  simple  song  with 
obvious  excitement.  The  idiotic-looking  wood- 
cock, inspired  by  the  grand  passion,  rises  upon 
whistling  wings  in  the  early  spring  twilight,  and 
floats  and  circles  at  an  altitude  of  a  hundred  feet 
or  more,  and  in  rapid  smackering  and  chippering 
notes  unburdens  his  soul.  The  song  of  ecstasy 
with  our  meadowlark  is  delivered  in  a  level  flight 
and  is  sharp  and  hurried,  both  flight  and  song  dili'er- 

37 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

ing  radically  from  its  everyday  performance.  One 
thinks  of  the  bobolink  as  singing  almost  habitually 
on  the  wing.  He  is  the  most  rollicking  and  song- 
drunk  of  all  our  singing  birds.  His  season  is  brief 
but  hilarious.  In  his  level  flight  he  seems  to  use 
only  the  tips  of  his  wings,  and  we  see  them  always 
below  the  level  of  his  back.  Our  common  birds 
that  have  no  flight-song,  so  far  as  I  have  observed, 
are  the  bluebird,  the  robin,  the  phoebe,  the  social 
sparrow,  the  tanager,  the  grosbeak,  the  pewee,  the 
wood  warblers,  and  most  of  the  ground  warblers. 

Over  thirty  years  ago  a  writer  on  flying-machines 
had  this  to  say  about  the  flight  of  sea-gulls: 
"Sweeping  around  in  circles,  occasionally  elevating 
themselves  by  a  few  flaps  of  the  wings,  they  glide 
down  and  up  the  aerial  inclines  without  apparently 
any  effort  whatever.  But  a  close  observation 
will  show  that  at  every  turn  the  angle  of  inclina- 
tion of  the  wings  is  changed  to  meet  the  new  condi- 
tions. There  is  continual  movement  with  power — 
by  the  bird  it  is  done  instinctively,  by  our  machine 
only  through  mechanism  obeying  a  mind  not  nearly 
so  well  instructed." 

The  albatross  will  follow  a  ship  at  sea,  sailing 
round  and  round,  in  a  brisk  breeze,  on  unbending 
wing,  only  now  and  then  righting  itself  with  a 
single  flap  of  its  great  pinions.  It  literally  rides 
Aipon  the  storm. 


IV 

BIRD  INTIMACIES 

When,  as  sometimes  happens,  I  feel  an  inclination 
to  seek  out  new  lands  in  my  own  country,  or  in 
other  countries,  to  see  what  Nature  is  doing  there, 
and  what  guise  she  wears,  something  prompts  me 
to  pause,  and  after  a  while  to  say  to  myself: 
*Xook  a  little  closer  into  the  nature  right  at  your 
own  door;  do  a  little  intensive  observation  at  home, 
and  see  what  that  yields  you.  The  enticement 
of  the  far-away  is  mostly  in  your  imagination; 
let  your  eyes  and  your  imagination  play  once  more 
on  the  old  familiar  birds  and  objects." 

One  season  in  my  walks  to  the  woods  I  was  on 
the  lookout  for  a  natural  bracket  among  the  tree- 
branches,  to  be  used  in  supporting  a  book-shelf.  I 
did  not  find  it;  but  one  day  in  a  shad-blow  tree, 
within  a  few  feet  from  the  corner  of  my  own  house, 
I  found  what  I  was  searching  for,  perfect  in  every 
particular — the  right  angle  and  the  supporting 
brace,  or  hypothenuse.  It  gave  me  a  hint  I  have 
not  forgotten. 

I  find  that  one  has  only  to  overcome  a  little  of 
his  obtuseness  and  indifference  and  look  a  little 
more  closely  upon  the  play  of  wild  life  about  him 
to  realize  how  much  interesting  natural  history  is 

39 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

being  enacted  every  day  before  his  very  eyes — in 
his  own  garden  and  dooryard  and  apple-orchard 
and  vineyard.  If  one's  mind  were  only  alert  and 
sensitive  enough  to  take  it  all  in!  Whether  one 
ddes  or  walks  or  sits  under  the  trees,  or  loiters 
about  the  fields  or  woods,  the  play  of  wild  life  is 
going  on  about  him,  and,  if  he  happens  to  be  blessed 
with  the  seeing  eye  and  the  hearing  ear,  is  available 
for  his  instruction  and  entertainment.  On  every 
farm  in  the  land  a  volume  of  live  natural  history 
goes  to  waste  every  year  because  there  is  no  his- 
torian to  note  the  happenings. 

The  drama  of  wild  life  goes  on  more  or  less  be- 
hind screens — sl  screen  of  leaves  or  of  grass,  or  of 
vines,  or  of  tree- trunks,  and  only  the  alert  and 
sympathetic  eye  penetrates  it.  The  keenest  of  us 
see  only  a  mere  fraction  of  it.  If  one  saw  one  tenth 
of  the  significant  happenings  that  take  place  on  his 
few  acres  of  orchard,  lawn,  and  vineyard  in  the 
course  of  the  season,  or  even  of  a  single  week,  what 
a  harvest  he  would  have!  The  drama  of  wild  life 
is  played  rapidly;  the  actors  are  on  and  off  the  stage 
before  we  fairly  know  it,  and  the  play  shifts  to  other 
stages. 

I  wonder  how  many  of  the  scores  of  persons  pass- 
ing along  the  road  between  my  place  and  the  rail- 
way station  one  early  May  day  became  aware  that 
a  rare  bird  incident  was  being  enacted  in  the  trees 
over  their  heads.     It  was  the  annual  sdngerfest  of 

40 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

the  goldfinches — one  of  the  prettiest  episodes  in 
the  Hves  of  any  of  our  birds,  a  real  musical  reunion 
of  the  goldfinch  tribe,  apparently  a  whole  township, 
many  hundreds  of  them,  filling  scores  of  the  tree- 
tops  along  the  road  and  in  the  groves  with  a  fine, 
sibilant  chorus  which  the  ear  refers  vaguely  to  the 
surrounding  tree-tops,  but  which  the  eye  fails 
adequately  to  account  for.  It  comes  from  every- 
where, but  from  nowhere  in  particular.  The  birds 
sit  singly  here  and  there  amid  the  branches,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  identify  the  singers.  It  is  a  minor 
strain,  but  multitudinous,  and  fills  all  the  air.  The 
males  are  just  donning  their  golden  uniforms,  as  if 
to  celebrate  the  blooming  of  the  dandelions,  which, 
with  the  elm-trees,  afford  them  their  earliest  food- 
supply.  While  they  are  singing  they  are  busy  cut- 
ting out  the  green  germs  of  the  elm  flakes,  and  going 
down  to  the  ground  and  tearing  open  the  closed 
dandelion-heads  that  have  shut  up  to  ripen  their 
seeds,  preparatory  to  their  second  and  ethereal 
flowering  when  they  become  spheres  of  fragile  sil- 
ver down. 

Whether  this  annual  reunion  of  the  goldfinches 
should  be  called  a  dandelion  festival,  or  a  new-coat 
festival,  or  whether  it  is  to  bring  the  sexes  together 
preliminary  to  the  mating-season,  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  decide.  It  usually  lasts  a  week  or  more,  and 
continues  on  wet  days  as  well  as  on  fair.  It  all 
has  a  decidedly  festive  air,   like  the  fete-days  of 

41 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

humans.  I  know  of  nothing  hke  it  among  other 
birds.  It  is  the  manifestation  of  something  dif- 
ferent from  the  flocking  instinct;  it  is  the  social  and 
hohday  instinct,  bringing  the  birds  together  tor  a 
brief  season,  as  if  in  celebration  of  some  special 
event  or  purpose.  I  have  observed  it  in  my  vicinity 
every  spring  for  many  years,  usually  in  April  or  early 
May,  and  it  is  the  prettiest  and  most  significant 
bird  episode,  involving  a  whole  species,  known 
to  me. 

The  goldfinch  has  many  pretty  ways.  He  is  one 
of  our  most  amiable  birds.  So  far  as  my  knowledge 
goes,  he  is  not  capable  of  one  harsh  note.  His  tones 
are  all  either  joyous  or  plaintive.  In  his  spring 
reunions  they  are  joyous.  In  the  peculiar  flight- 
song  in  which  he  indulges  in  the  mating  season, 
beating  the  air  vertically  with  his  round,  open 
wings,  his  tones  are  fairly  ecstatic.  His  call  to 
his  mate  when  she  is  brooding,  and  when  he  circles 
about  her  in  that  long,  billowy  flight,  the  crests  of 
his  airy  waves  being  thirty  or  forty  feet  apart,  call- 
ing, *'Perchic-o-pee,  perchic-o-pee,'*  as  if  he  were 
saying,  *Tor  love  of  thee,  for  love  of  thee,'*  and  she 
calling  back,  *'Yes,  dearie;  yes,  dearie" — his  tones < 
at  such  times  express  contentment  and  reassurance. 

When  any  of  his  natural  enemies  appear — a 
hawk,  a  cat,  a  jay — his  tones  are  plaintive  and  ap- 
pealing. *'Pit-y,  pit-y!"  he  cries  in  sorrow  and  not 
in  anger. 

42 


BIRD  INTIIMACIES 

When  with  his  mate  he  leads  their  brood  about 
the  August  thistles,  the  young  call  in  a  similar  tone. 
When  in  July  the  nesting  has  begun,  the  female 
talks  the  prettiest  *'baby  talk"  to  her  mate  as  he 
feeds  her.  The  nest-building  rarely  begins  till 
thistledown  can  be  had — so  literally  are  all  the 
ways  of  this  darling  bird  ways  of  softness  and 
gentleness.  The  nest  is  a  thick,  soft,  warm  struc- 
ture, securely  fastened  in  the  fork  of  a  maple  or 
an  apple-tree. 

None  of  our  familiar  birds  endear  themselves  to 
us  more  than  does  the  bluebird.  The  first  blue- 
bird in  the  spring  is  as  welcome  as  the  blue  sky 
itself.  The  season  seems  softened  and  tempered 
as  soon  as  we  hear  his  note  and  see  his  warm  breast 
and  azure  wing.  His  gentle  manners,  his  soft,  ap- 
pealing voice,  not  less  than  his  pleasing  hues,  seem 
born  of  the  bright  and  genial  skies.  He  is  the  spirit 
of  the  April  days  incarnated  in  a  bird.  He  has 
the  quality  of  winsomeness,  like  the  violet  and  the 
speedwell  among  the  flowers.  Not  strictly  a  song- 
ster, yet  his  every  note  and  call  is  from  out  the 
soul  of  harmony.  The  bluebird  is  evidently  an  off- 
shoot from  the  thrush  family,  and  without  th( 
thrush's  gift  of  song;  still  his  voice  affords  us  much 
of  the  same  pleasure. 

How  readily  the  bluebirds  become  our  friends 
and  neighbors  when  we  offer  them  suitable  nesting- 
retreats!     Bring    them    something    from    nature, 

43 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

something  with  the  bark  on — a  section  of  a  dry 
beech  or  maple  Hmb  in  which  the  downy  wood- 
pecker has  excavated  his  chamber  and  passed  the 
winter  or  reared  his  brood;  fasten  it  in  early  spring 
upon  the  corner  of  your  porch,  or  on  the  trunk  of 
a  near-by  tree,  and  see  what  interesting  neighbors 
you  will  soon  have.  One  summer  I  brought  home 
from  one  of  my  walks  to  the  woods  a  section,  two 
or  three  feet  long,  of  a  large  yellow  birch  limb 
which  contained  such  a  cavity  as  I  speak  of,  and 
I  wired  it  to  one  of  the  posts  of  the  rustic  porch  at 
Woodchuck  Lodge.  The  next  season  a  pair  of 
bluebirds  reared  two  broods  in  it.  The  incubation 
of  the  eggs  for  the  second  brood  was  well  under 
way  when  I  appeared  upon  the  scene  in  early  July. 
My  sudden  presence  so  near  their  treasures,  and  my 
lingering  there  with  books  and  newspapers,  dis- 
turbed the  birds  a  good  deal.  The  first  afternoon  the 
mother  bird  did  not  enter  the  cavity  for  hours.  I  shall 
always  remember  the  pretty  and  earnest  manner  in 
which  the  male  tried  to  reassure  her  and  persuade 
her  that  the  danger  was  not  so  imminent  as  it 
appeared  to  be,  probably  encouraging  a  confidence 
in  his  mate  which  he  did  not  himself  share.  The 
mother  bird  would  alight  at  the  entrance  to  the 
chamber,  but,  with  her  eye  fixed  upon  the  man 
with  the  newspaper,  feared  to  enter.  The  male, 
perched  upon  the  telegraph  wire  fifty  feet  away, 
would  raise  his  wings  and  put  all  the  love  and 

44 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

assurance  in  his  voice  he  was  capable  of,  apparently 
trying  to  dispel  her  fears.  He  would  warble  and 
warble,  and  make  those  pretty  wing  gestures  over 
and  over,  saying  so  plainly:  "It  is  all  right,  my 
dear,  the  man  is  harmless — absorbed  there  in  his 
newspaper.  Go  in,  go  in,  and  keep  warm  our 
precious  eggs!"  How  long  she  hesitated!  But  as 
night  grew  near  she  grew  more  and  more  anxious, 
and  he  more  and  more  eloquent.  Finally  she 
alighted  upon  the  edge  of  the  overhanging  roof  and 
peered  down  hesitatingly.  Her  mate  applauded 
and  encouraged  till  finally  she  made  the  plunge  and 
entered  the  hole,  but  instantly  came  out  again; 
her  heart  failed  her  for  a  moment;  but  she  soon 
returned  and  remained  inside.  Then  her  mate  fiew 
away  toward  the  orchard,  uttering  a  cheery  note 
which  doubtless  she  understood. 

The  birds  soon  became  used  to  my  presence  and 
their  household  matters  progressed  satisfactorily. 
Both  birds  took  a  hand  in  feeding  the  young,  which 
grew  rapidly.  When  they  were  nearly  ready  to 
leave  the  nest,  a  cruel  fate  befell  them:  I  slept 
upon  the  porch,  and  one  night  I  was  awakened  by 
the  cry  of  young  bluebirds,  and  the  sound  of  feet 
like  those  of  a  squirrel  on  the  roof  over  me.  Then 
I  heard  the  cry  of  a  young  bird  proceed  from  the 
butternut-tree  across  the  road  opposite  the  house. 
I  said  to  myself,  "A  squirrel  or  an  owl  is  after  my 
birds."     The  cry  coming  so  quickly  from  the  but- 

45 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

ternut-tree  made  me  suspect  an  owl,  and  that  the 
bird  whose  cry  I  heard  was  in  his  talons.  I  was 
out  of  my  cot  and  up  to  the  nest  in  a 
moment,  but  the  tragedy  was  over;  the  birds  were 
all  gone,  and  the  night  was  silent.  In  the 
morning  I  found  that  a  piece  of  the  brittle 
birch  limb  had  been  torn  away,  enlarging 
the  entrance  to  the  cavity  so  that  the  murderous 
talons  of  the  owl  could  reach  in  and  seize  the  young 
birds.  I  had  been  aroused  in  time  to  hear  the 
marauder  on  the  roof  with  one,  and  then  hear  its 
cry  as  he  carried  it  to  the  tree.  In  the  grass  in 
front  I  found  one  of  the  young,  unable  to  fly,  but 
apparently  unhurt.  I  put  it  back  in  the  nest,  but 
it  would  not  stay.  The  spell  of  the  nest  was 
broken,  and  the  young  bird  took  to  the  grass 
again.  The  parent  birds  were  on  hand,  much 
excited,  and,  when  I  tried  to  return  the  sur- 
viving bird  to  the  nest,  the  male  came  at  me 
fiercely,  apparently  charging  the  whole  catastrophe 
to  me. 

We  had  strong  proof  the  previous  season  that 
an  owl,  probably  the  screech  owl,  prowled  about 
the  house  at  night.  A  statuette  of  myself  in  clay 
which  a  sculptor  was  modeling  was  left  out  one 
night  on  the  porch,  and  in  the  morning  its  head 
was  unusually  bowed.  The  prints  of  a  bird's 
talons  upon  the  top  told  what  had  happened.  In 
the  bronze  reproduction  of  that  statuette  the  head 

46 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

has  more  of  a  droop  than  the  artist  at  first  planned 
to  give  it. 

The  next  season  the  bluebirds  occupied  the  cavity 
in  the  birch  limb  again,  but  before  my  arrival  in 
July  the  owls  had  again  cleaned  them  out.  In  so 
doing  they  had  rii)ped  the  cavity  open  nearly  to  the 
bottom.  For  all  that,  early  the  following  May 
bluebirds  were  occupying  the  cavity  again.  It 
held  three  eggs  when  I  arrived.  I  looked  over  the 
situation  and  resolved  to  try  to  head  off  the  owl 
this  time,  even  at  the  risk  of  driving  the  bluebirds 
away.  I  took  a  strip  of  tin  several  inches  wide 
and  covered  the  slit  with  it  and  wired  it  fast. 
Then  I  obtained  a  broad  strip  of  dry  birch-bark, 
wrapped  it  about  the  limb  over  the  tin,  and  wired 
it  fast,  leaving  the  entrance  to  the  nest  in  its 
original  form.  I  knew  the  owl  could  not  slit  tlie 
tin;  the  birch-bark  would  hide  it  and  preserve  in 
a  measure  the  natural  appearance  of  the  branch. 
When  the  bluebirds  saw  what  had  happened  to 
their  abode,  they  were  a  good  deal  distressed;  they 
could  no  longer  see  their  eggs  through  the  slit 
which  the  owl  had  made,  and  they  refused  to  enter 
the  cavity.  They  hung  about  all  day,  uttering 
despondent  notes,  approaching  the  nest  at  times, 
but  hesitating  even  to  alight  upon  the  roof  above 
it.  Occasionally  the  female  would  fly  away  toward 
the  distant  woods  or  hills  uttering  that  plaintive, 
homesick  note  which  seemed  to  mean  farewell. 

47 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

The  male  would  follow  her,  calling  in  a  more  cheery 
and  encouraging  tone.  Once  the  couple  were 
gone  three  or  four  hours,  and  I  concluded  they  had 
really  deserted  the  place.  But  just  before  sun- 
down they  were  back  again,  and  the  female  alighted 
at  the  entrance  to  the  nest  and  looked  in.  The 
male  called  to  her  cheerily;  still  she^would  not  enter, 
but  joined  him  on  the  telephone  wire,  where  the  two 
seemed  to  hold  a  little  discussion.  Presently  the 
mother  bird  flew  to  the  nest  again,  then  to  the 
roof  above  it,  then  back  to  the  nest,  and  entered 
it  till  only  her  tail  showed,  then  flew  back  to  the 
wire  beside  her  mate.  She  was  evidently  making 
up  her  mind  that  the  case  was  not  hopeless.  After 
a  little  more  maneuvering,  and  amid  the  happy, 
reassuring  calls  of  her  mate,  she  entered  the  nest 
cavity  and  remained,  and  I  was  as  well  pleased  as 
was  her  mate. 

No  owls  disturbed  them  this  time,  and  the  brood 
of  young  birds  was  brought  off  in  due  season.  In 
July  a  second  brood  of  four  was  successfully  reared 
and  sent  forth  on  their  career. 

The  oriole  nests  in  many  kinds  of  trees — oaks, 
maples,  apple-trees,  elms — but  her  favorite  is  the 
elm.  She  chooses  the  end  of  one  of  the  long  droop- 
ing branches  where  a  group  of  small  swaying  twigs 
affords  her  suitable  support.  It  is  the  most  un- 
likely place  imaginable  for  any  but  a  pendent  nest, 
woven  to  half  a  dozen  or  more  slender,  vertical 

48 


BIRD  INTBIACIES 

twigs,  and  swaying  freely  in  the  wind.  Few  nests 
are  so  secure,  so  hidden,  and  so  completely  sheltered 
from  the  rains  by  the  drooping  leaves  above  and 
around  it.  It  is  rarely  discoverable  except  from 
directly  beneath  it.  I  think  a  well-built  oriole's 
nest  w^ould  sustain  a  weight  of  eight  or  ten  pounds 
before  it  would  be  torn  from  its  moorings.  They 
are  also  very  partial  to  the  ends  of  branches  that 
swing  low  over  the  highway.  One  May  I  saw  two 
female  orioles  building  their  nests  twenty  or  twenty- 
five  feet  above  our  State  Road,  where  automobiles 
and  other  vehicles  passed  nearly  every  minute  all 
the  day.  An  oriole's  nest  in  a  remote  field  far  from 
highways  and  dwellings  is  a  rare  occurrence. 

Birds  of  different  species  differ  as  widely  in  skill 
in  nest-building  as  they  do  in  song.  From  the  rude 
platform  of  dry  twigs  and  other  coarse  material  of 
the  cuckoo,  to  the  pendent,  closely  woven  pouch  of 
the  oriole,  the  difference  in  the  degree  of  skill  dis- 
played is  analogous  to  the  difference  between  the 
simple  lisp  of  the  cedar-bird,  or  the  little  tin  whistle 
of  the  "chippie,"  and  the  golden  notes  of  the  wood 
thrush,  or  the  hilarious  song  of  the  bobolink. 

Real  castles  in  the  air  are  the  nests  of  the  orioles; 
no  other  nests  are  better  hidden  or  apparently  more 
safe  from  the  depredations  of  crows  and  squirrels. 
To  start  the  oriole's  nest  successfully  is  quite  an 
engineering  feat.  The  birds  inspect  the  branches 
many  times  before  they  make  a  decision.     When 

49 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

they  have  decided  on  the  site,  the  mother  bird 
brings  her  first  string  or  vegetable  fiber  and  attaches 
it  to  a  twig  by  winding  it  around  and  around  many 
times,  leaving  one  or  both  ends  hanging  free.  I  have 
I  nests  where  these  foundation  strings  are  wound 
around  a  twig  a  dozen  times.  In  her  blind  windings 
and  tuckings  and  loopings  the  bird  occasionally  ties 
a  substantial  knot,  but  it  is  never  the  result  of  a 
deliberate  purpose  as  some  observers  contend,  but 
purely  a  matter  of  chance.  When  she  uses  only 
wild  vegetable  fibers,  she  fastens  it  to  the  twig  by 
a  hopeless  kind  of  tangle.  It  is  about  the  craziest 
kind  of  knitting  imaginable.  After  the  builder  has 
fastened  many  lines  to  opposite  twigs,  their  ends 
hanging  free,  she  proceeds  to  span  the  little  gulf 
by  weaving  them  together.  She  stands  w^ith  her 
claws  clasped  one  to  each  side,  and  uses  her  beak 
industriously,  looping  up  and  fastening  the  loose 
ends.  I  have  stood  in  the  road  under  the  nest  look- 
ing straight  up  till  my  head  swam,  trying  to  make  out 
just  how  she  did  it,  but  all  I  could  see  was  the  bird 
standing  astride  the  chasm  she  was  trying  to  bridge, 
and  busy  with  the  hanging  strings.  Slowly  the  maze 
of  loose  threads  takes  a  sacklike  form,  the  bottom 
of  the  nest  thickens,  till  some  morning  you  see  the 
movement  of  the  bird  inside  it;  her  beak  comes 
through  the  sides  from  within,  like  a  needle  or  an 
awl,  seizes  a  loose  hair  or  thread,  and  jerks  it  back 
through  the  wall  and  tightens  it.     It  is  a  regular 

50 


BIED  INTIIVIACIES 

stitching  or  quilting  process.  The  course  of  any 
particular  thread  or  fiber  is  as  irregular  and  hap- 
hazard as  if  it  were  the  work  of  the  wind  or  the 
waves.  There  is  plan,  but  no  conscious  method  of 
procedure.  In  fact,  a  bird's  nest  is  a  growth.  It 
is  not  something  builded  as  we  build,  in  which 
judgment,  design,  forethought  enter;  it  is  the  result 
of  the  blind  groping  of  instinct  which  rarely  errs, 
but  which  does  not  see  the  end  from  the  beginning, 
as  reason  does.  The  oriole  sometimes  overhands 
the  rim  of  her  nest  with  strings  and  fibers  to  make 
it  firm,  and  to  afford  a  foundation  for  her  to  perch 
upon,  but  it  is  like  the  pathetic  work  which  an 
untaught  blind  child  might  do  under  similar  con- 
ditions. The  birds  use  fine,  strong  strings  in  their 
nest-building  at  their  peril.  Many  a  tragedy  re- 
sults from  it.  I  have  an  oriole's  nest  sent  me  from 
Michigan  on  the  outside  of  which  is  a  bird's  dried 
foot  with  a  string  ingeniously  knotted  around  it. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  tie  so  complicated  a  knot. 
The  tragedy  is  easy  to  read.  Another  nest  sent  me 
from  the  Mississippi  Valley  is  largely  made  up  of 
fragments  of  fish-line  with  the  fish-hooks  on  them. 
But  there  is  no  sign  that  the  bird  came  to  grief 
using  this  dangerous  material.  Where  the  lives  of 
the  wild  creatures  impinge  upon  our  lives  is  always 
a  danger-line  to  them.  They  are  partakers  of  our 
bounty  in  many  ways,  but  they  pay  a  tax  to  fate 
in  others. 

51 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

The  orioles  in  my  part  of  the  country  always  use 
the  same  material  in  the  body  of  their  nests — a 
kind  of  soft,  gray,  flaxlike  fiber  which  they  ap- 
parently get  from  some  species  of  everlasting  flower. 
Woven  together  and  quilted  through  with  strings 
and  horse-hairs,  it  makes  strong,  warm,  feltlike 
walls.  In  the  nest  sent  me  from  Michigan  the 
walls  are  made  of  something  that  suggests  brown 
human  hair,  except  that  it  is  too  hard  and  brittle 
for  hair. 

Our  orchard  oriole  also  makes  a  pendent  nestj 
but  not  so  deep  and  pocketlike  as  that  of  the 
Baltimore  oriole,  and  showing  no  such  elaborate 
use  of  strings  and  hairs.  It  is  made  entirely  of 
some  sort  of  dried  grass,  very  elaborately  woven 
together. 

Bullock's  oriole  of  California  weaves  its  nest  en- 
tirely of  the  long,  strong  threads  which  it  draws  out 
of  the  palm-leaves.  The  only  one  I  have  seen  was 
suspended  from  the  under  side  of  one  of  those 
leaves. 

I  think  the  prize  nest  of  the  woods,  if  we  except 
the  nest  of  the  hummingbird,  is  that  of  the  wood 
pewee.  It  is  as  smooth  and  compact  and  sym- 
metrical as  if  turned  in  a  lathe  out  of  some  soft,  felt- 
like substance.  Of  course,  the  phcebe's  artistic  ma- 
sonry under  the  shelving  rocks,  covered  with  moss 
and  lined  with  feathers,  or  with  the  finest  dry  grass 
and  bark  fibers,  sheltered  from  the  storms  and  be- 

52 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

yond  the  reach  of  four-footed  prowlers,  is  almost 
ideal.    It  certainly  is  a  happy  thought. 

The  least  flycatcher,  the  kingbird,  the  cedar-bird, 
the  goldfinch,  the  indigo-bird,  are  all  fine  nest- 
builders,  each  with  a  style  of  its  own. 

About  the  most  insecure  nest  in  our  trees  is  that 
of  the  little  social  sparrow,  or  "chippie."  When 
the  sudden  summer  storms  come,  making  the  tree- 
tops  writhe  as  if  in  agony,  I  think  of  this  frail  nest 
amid  the  tossing  branches.  Pass  through  the  grove 
or  orchard  after  the  tempest  is  over,  and  you  are 
pretty  sure  to  find  several  wrecked  nests  upon  the 
ground.  "Chippie"  has  never  learned  the  art  of 
nest-building  in  trees.  She  is  a  poor  architect. 
She  should  have  kept  to  the  ground  or  to  the  low 
bushes.  The  true  tree  nest-builders  weave  their 
nests  fast  to  the  branches,  but  "Chippie"  does  not; 
she  simply  arranges  her  material  loosely  between 
them,  where  the  nest  is  supported,  but  not  secured. 
She  seems  pathetically  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
there  are  such  things  as  wind  and  storm.  Hence 
her  frail  structure  is  more  frequently  dislodged  from 
the  trees  than  that  of  any  other  bird. 

Recently,  after  a  day  of  violent  northwest  wind, 
I  found  a  wrecked  robin's  nest  and  eggs  upon  the 
lawn  under  a  maple — not  a  frequent  spectacle. 
The  robin's  firm  masonry  is  usually  proof  against 
wind  and  rain,  but  in  this  case  the  nest  was  com- 
posed almost  entirely  of  dry  grass;  there  was  hardly 

53 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

a  trace  of  mud  in  it,  hence  it  was  flexible  and  yield- 
ing, and  had  no  grip  of  the  branches.  It  was  evi- 
dently the  second  nest  of  the  pair  this  season,  and 
the  second  nest  in  summer  of  any  species  of  bird 
is  frailer  and  more  of  a  makeshift  than  the  first 
nest  in  spring.  Comparatively  few  of  our  birds 
attempt  to  bring  off  a  second  brood  unless  the  first 
attempt  has  been  defeated,  but  the  robin  is  sure  to 
bring  off  two,  and  may  bring  off  three.  But  the 
robin  is  a  hustler,  probably  the  most  enterprising 
of  all  our  birds.  I  recall  a  mother  robin  that,  in 
late  June,  repaired  a  nest  in  a  climbing  rosebush 
which  her  first  brood  had  vacated  only  a  week 
before.  A  brood  of  wood  thrushes  which  left  their 
nest  about  the  same  time  was  still  being  fed  by 
their  parents  about  the  place. 

The  song  sparrow,  the  social  sparrow,  the  phcebe, 
the  bluebird,  all  build  a  second  nest.  The  first 
brood  of  the  bluebird  will  be  looked  after  by  the 
father  in  some  near-by  grove  or  orchard,  while  the 
mother  starts  a  new  family  in  the  old  nest.  If  all 
goes  well  with  them,  those  two  bluebird  families 
will  unite  and  keep  together  in  a  loose  flock  till 
they  migrate  in  the  fall. 

So  many  of  our  birds  nest  about  our  houses  and 
lawns  and  gardens  and  along  our  highways,  that 
at  first  sight  it  seems  as  if  they  must  be  drawn 
there  by  a  sense  of  greater  security  for  their  eggs 
and   young.    The    robin    has    become   almost    a 

54 


BIRD  INTIIVIACIES 

domestic  institution.  It  is  rarely  that  one  finds  a 
robin's  nest  very  far  from  a  human  habitation. 
One  spring  there  were  four  robins'  nests  on  my 
house  and  outbuildings — in  the  vines,  on  window- 
sills,  or  other  coigns  of  vantage.  There  were  at 
the  same  time  at  least  fifteen  robins'  nests  on  my 
lot  of  sixteen  acres,  and  I  am  quite  certain 
that  I  have  not  seen  all  there  were.  They  were  in 
sheds  and  apple-trees  and  spruces  and  cedars,  in 
the  ends  of  piles  of  grape-posts,  in  rosebushes,  in 
the  summer-house,  and  on  the  porch.  We  did  not 
expect  to  get  one  of  the  early  cherries,  and  might 
count  ourselves  lucky  if  we  got  any  of  the  later  ones. 

A  robin  has  built  her  nest  in  my  summer-house. 
She  abuses  me  so  when  I  try  to  tarry  there,  after 
incubation  has  begun,  that  I  take  no  comfort  and 
presently  withdraw.  Until  her  brood  has  flown,  I 
am  practically  a  stranger  in  my  open-air  rest-house 
and  study. 

When  the  fish  crows  come  egging  in  the  spruces 
and  maples  about  the  house,  and  I  hear  the  scream- 
ing of  the  robins,  I  seize  my  gun  and  rush  out  to 
protect  them,  but  am  not  always  successful,  as  the 
mischief  is  often  done  before  I  get  within  reach; 
I  am  not  sure  but  that  the  robins  think — if  they 
think  at  all — that  I  am  in  league  with  the  crows 
to  despoil  them.  I  was  not  in  time  to  save  the  eggs 
of  the  wood  thrush  the  other  morning,  when  I 
heard  the  alarm  calls  of  the  birds,  but  I  had  the 

55 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

satisfaction  of  seeing  the  black  marauder  go  limp- 
ing over  the  hill,  dropping  quills  from  his  wings  at 
nearly  every  stroke.  I  am  sure  he  will  not  come 
back.  The  fish  crow  is  one  of  the  most  active  ene- 
mies of  our  small  birds.  Of  course,  he  only  obeys 
his  instincts  in  hunting  out  and  devouring  their 
eggs  and  young,  but  I  fancy  I  obey  something 
higher  than  instinct  when  I  protest  with  powder 
and  shot. 

The  birds  do  not  mind  the  approach  of  the 
domestic  animals,  such  as  the  cow,  the  horse,  the 
sheep,  the  pig,  and  they  are  only  a  little  suspicious 
of  the  dog,  but  the  appearance  of  the  cat  fills  them 
with  sudden  alarm.  I  think  that  birds  that  have 
never  before  seen  a  cat  join  in  the  hue  and  cry. 
What  alarms  one  alarms  all  within  hearing.  The 
orioles  are  probably  the  most  immune  from  the 
depredations  of  crows  and  jays  and  owls  of  all  our 
birds,  and  yet  they  will  join  in  the  cry  of  "Thief, 
thief!"  when  a  crow  appears.  (The  alarm  cry  of 
birds  will  even  arrest  the  attention  of  four-footed 
beasts,  and  often  bring  the  sportsman's  stalking  to 

naught.) 

I  fancy  that  Phoebe  selects  our  sheds  and  bridges 
and  porticoes  for  her  nesting-sites  because  they  are 
so  much  more  numerous  than  the  overhanging 
rocks  where  her  forbears  built.  For  the  same  rea- 
son certain  of  the  swallows  and  the  swifts  select 
our  barns  and  chimneys. 

56 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

If  the  birds  themselves  are  not  afraid  to  draw 
near  us,  why  should  their  instinct  lead  them  to  feel 
that  their  enemies  will  be  afraid  of  us?  How  do 
they  know  that  a  jay  or  a  crow  or  a  red  squirrel 
will  be  less  timid  than  they  are?  And  why  also, 
if  they  have  such  confidence  in  us,  do  they  raise 
such  a  hue  and  cry  when  we  pass  near  their  nests? 
The  robin  in  my  summer-house  knew,  if  she  knew 
anything,  that  I  had  never  raised  a  finger  against 
her.  On  the  contrary,  my  hoe  in  the  garden  had 
unearthed  many  a  worm  and  slug  for  her.  Still 
she  sees  in  me  only  a  possible  enemy,  and  tolerate 
me  with  my  book  or  my  newspaper  near  her  nest 
she  will  not.  Another  robin  has  built  her  nest 
in  a  rosebush  that  has  been  trained  to  form 
an  arch  over  the  walk  that  leads  to  the  kitchen 
door  and  only  a  few  yards  from  it;  but  when- 
ever we  pass  and  repass  she  scurries  away  with 
loud,  angry  protests  and  keeps  it  up  as  long  as 
we  are  in  sight,  so  that  we  do  not  feel  at  all 
complimented  by  her  settling  down  so  near  us.  If 
one's  appearance  is  so  alarming,  even  when  he 
is  going  to  hoe  the  garden,  why  did  the  intolerant 
bird  set  up  her  household  gods  so  near?  If  I 
keep  away  her  enemies,  why  will  she  not  be 
gracious  enough  to  regard  me  as  her  friend? 
The  robin  that  trusted  her  brood  to  the  shelter- 
ing vines  of  the  woodshed,  and  lined  her  nest  with 
the  hair  of  our  old  gray  horse — why  should  she 

57 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

scream,  *'Murder!"  whenever  any  of  us  go  to  the 
well  a  few  feet  away? 

AMiat  is  the  real  explanation  of  the  fact  that  so 
many  of  our  birds  nest  so  near  our  dwellings  and 
yet  show  such  unfriendliness  when  we  come  near 
them?  Their  apparent  confidence,  on  the  one 
hand,  contradicts  their  suspicion  on  the  other.  Is 
it  because  we  have  here  the  workings  of  a  new 
instinct  which  has  not  yet  adjusted  itself  to  the 
workings  of  the  older  instinct  of  solicitude  for  the 
safety  of  the  nest  and  young?  My  own  interpre- 
tation is  that  birds  are  not  drawn  near  us  by  any 
sense  of  greater  security  in  our  vicinity.  It  is  evi- 
dent from  the  start  that  there  is  an  initial  fear  of 
us  to  be  overcome.  How,  then,  could  the  sense  of 
greater  safety  in  our  presence  arise?  Fear  and 
trust  do  not  spring  from  the  same  root.  How 
should  the  robins  and  thrushes  know  that  their 
enemies — the  jays,  the  crows,  and  the  like — are 
more  afraid  of  human  beings  than  they  are  them- 
selves? Hunted  animals  pursued  by  wolves  or 
hounds  will  at  times  take  refuge  in  the  haunts  of 
men,  not  because  they  expect  human  protection, 
but  because  they  are  desperate,  and  oblivious  to 
everything  save  some  means  of  escape.  If  the 
hunted  deer  or  fox  rushes  into  an  open  shed  or  a 
barn  door,  it  is  because  it  is  desperately  hard- 
pressed,  and  sees  and  knows  nothing  but  some  ob- 
ject or  situation  that  it  may  place  between  itself 

58 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

and  its  deadly  enemy.  The  great  fear  obliterates 
all  minor  fears. 

The  key  to  the  behavior  of  the  birds  in  this 
respect  may  be  found  in  the  Darwinian  theory  of 
natural  selection.  From  the  first  settlement  of  the 
country  a  few  of  the  common  birds,  attracted  by  a 
more  suitable  or  more  abundant  food-supply,  or 
other  conditions,  must  inevitably  have  nested  near 
human  dwellings.  These  birds  would  thrive  bet- 
ter and  succeed  in  bringing  off  more  young  than 
those  that  nested  in  more  exposed  places.  Hence, 
their  progeny  would  soon  be  in  the  ascendancy.  All 
animals  seem  to  have  associated  memory.  These 
birds  would  naturally  return  to  the  scenes  and  con- 
ditions of  their  youth,  and  start  their  nests  there. 
It  would  not  be  confidence  in  men  that  would  draw 
them;  rather  would  the  truth  be  that  the  fear  of 
man  is  inadequate  to  overcome  or  annul  this  home 
attraction. 

The  catbird  does  not  come  to  our  vines  on  the 
veranda  to  nest  from  considerations  of  safety,  but 
because  her  line  of  descent  runs  through  such  places. 
The  catbirds  and  robins  and  phoebe-birds  that  were 
reared  far  from  human  habitations  doubtless  return 
to  such  localities  to  rear  their  young.  The  home 
sense  in  birds  is  strong.  I  have  positive  proof  in  a 
few  instances  of  robins  and  song  sparrows  return- 
ing successive  years  to  the  same  neighborhood.  It 
is  very  certain,  I  think,  that  the  phoebe-birds  that 

59 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

daub  our  porches  with  their  mud,  and  in  July  leave 
a  trail  of  minute  creeping  and  crawling  pests, 
were  not  themselves  hatched  and  reared  in  the 
pretty,  moss-covered  structure  under  the  shelving 
rocks  in  the  woods,  or  on  the  hillsides. 

How  different  from  the  manners  of  the  robins 
are  the  manners  of  a  pair  of  catbirds  that  have  a 
nest  in  the  honeysuckle  against  the  side  of  the  first- 
floor  sleeping-porch!  Nothing  seems  farther  from 
the  nature  of  the  catbird  than  the  hue  and  cry 
which  the  robin  at  times  sets  up.  The  catbird  is 
sly  and  dislikes  publicity.  An  appealing  feline 
mew  is  her  characteristic  note.  She  never  raises 
her  voice  like  the  town-crier,  as  the  robin  does, 
perched  in  the  mean  time  where  all  eyes  may  behold 
him.  The  catbird  peers  and  utters  her  soft  protest 
from  her  hiding-place  in  the  bushes.  This  par- 
ticular pair  of  catbirds  appeared  in  early  May  and 
began  slyly  to  look  over  the  situation  in  the  vines 
and  bushes  about  the  house.  All  their  proceedings 
were  very  stealthy;  they  were  like  two  dark  shad- 
ows gliding  about,  avoiding  observation — no  tree- 
tops  or  house-tops  for  them,  but  coverts  close  to 
the  ground.  We  hoped  they  would  divine  safety 
in  the  shadow  of  the  cottage,  but  tried  to  act  as 
if  oblivious  of  their  goings  and  comings.  We  saw 
them  now  and  then  stealthily  inspecting  the  tangle 
of  honeysuckle  on  the  east  side  of  the  veranda, 
where  a  robin  last  season  reared  a  brood,  and  the 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

low  hedge  of  barberry-bushes  on  the  south  side  of 
the  cottage,  where  a  song  sparrow  had  her  nest. 
If  they  come,  which  will  they  take,  we  wondered. 
Several  times  in  the  early  morning  I  heard  the 
male  singing  vivaciously  and  confidently  in  the 
thick  of  the  honeysuckle.  I  guessed  that  the 
honeysuckle  was  the  choice  of  the  male,  and  that 
his  song  was  a  paean  in  praise  of  it,  addressed  to 
his  mate.  But  it  was  nearly  a  week  before  his 
musical  argument  prevailed  and  the  site  was  ap- 
parently agreed  upon. 

When  the  nest-building  actually  began,  the  birds 
were  so  shy  about  it  that,  watch  as  I  might,  I  failed 
to  catch  them  in  the  act.  One  morning  I  saw  the 
mother  bird  in  the  garden  with  nesting-material 
in  her  beak,  but  she  failed  to  come  to  the  honey- 
suckle with  it  while  I  watched  from  a  near-by 
covert.  At  the  same  time  robins  were  flying  here 
and  there  with  loaded  beaks,  and  wood  thrushes 
were  going  through  the  air  trailing  long  strips  of 
white  paper  behind  them,  but  the  catbird  was  an 
emblem  of  secrecy  itself.  She,  too,  brought  frag- 
ments of  white  paper  to  her  nest,  but  no  one  saw 
her  do  it.  Like  other  nest-builders,  she  apparently 
put  in  her  big  strokes  of  work  in  the  early  morning 
before  the  sleepers  on  the  veranda  were  stirring. 
A  few  times  my  inquisitive  eye,  cautiously  peering 
over  the  railing,  started  her  from  the  vine,  but  1 
never  saw  her  enter  it  with  leaf,  stick,  or  straw; 

61 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

yet  slowly  the  nest  grew  and  came  into  shape,  and 
finally  received  its  finishing  touches.  So  cautiously 
had  the  birds  proceeded  that,  were  they  capable 
of  concepts  like  us,  I  should  fancy  they  flattered 
themselves  that  we  had  not  the  least  suspicion  of 
their  little  secret.  The  male  ceased  to  sing  near 
the  house  after  the  nest  was  begun.  So  much  time 
elapsed  after  the  finishing  of  the  nest  before  the 
first  egg  appeared  in  it  that  some  members  of  the 
household  feared  the  birds  had  deserted  it,  espe- 
cially as  they  were  not  seen  about  the  premises  for 
several  days.  But  the  weather  was  wet  and  cool, 
and  the  eggs  ripened  slowly.  Then  one  morning 
the  birds  were  seen  again,  and  one  blue-green  egg 
was  discovered  in  the  nest.  The  next  morning 
another  egg  was  added,  and  a  third  egg  on  the 
third  morning,  and  a  fourth  on  the  fourth  morning. 
In  due  time  incubation  began,  and  thenceforth  all 
went  well  with  our  dusky  neighbors. 

It  is  an  anxious  moment  for  all  birds  when  their 
young  leave  the  nest.  One  noontime  by  the  un- 
usual mewing  of  a  parent  catbird  I  felt  sure  that 
the  critical  time  had  come.  Sure  enough,  there 
sat  one  of  the  young  on  a  twig  a  few  inches  above 
the  nest,  motionless  and  hushed.  No  lusty  re- 
sponse to  the  agitated  cry  of  the  mother,  as  is 
usually  the  case  with  the  robin.  '*No  pubUcity"  is 
the  watchword  of  the  young  catbirds  as  well  as 
of  the  old.    An  hour  or  two  later  another  young 

62 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

one  was  perched  on  a  branch,  and  before  ni;;lit, 
when  no  one  was  looking,  they  both  disappeared, 
leaving  two  motionless  birds  in  the  nest.  The 
next  morning  early,  without  any  signs  of  alarm 
or  agitation  on  the  part  of  the  old  birds,  they  took 
V  the  important  step.  It  could  hardly  have  been 
much  of  a  flight  with  any  of  them,  as  their  wing- 
quills  were  only  partially  developed,  and  their  tails 
were  mere  stubs.  For  several  days  afterward  no 
sign  or  sound  of  old  or  young  was  seen  or  heard. 
They  were  probably  keeping  well  concealed  in  the 
near-by  trees  or  in  the  vines  and  currant-bushes  in 
the  vineyard.  In  about  a  week  the  whole  family 
appeared  briefly  in  upper  branches  of  the  maples 
near  the  house.  The  young  were  distinguishable 
from  the  old  only  by  their  shorter  tails.  A  few 
days  later  the  parent  birds  were  seen  moving 
stealthily  through  the  vines  and  bushes  about  the 
house,  or  perching  on  the  near-by  stakes  that  sup- 
ported the  wire  netting.  Are  they  coming  back 
for  a  second  brood.?  was  the  question  in  our  minds. 
Soon  we  began  to  hear  snatches  of  song  from  the 
male,  then  one  morning  a  regular  old-time  burst  of 
joy  from  him  in  the  vine  that  held  the  old  nest. 
Then  he  sang  in  a  syringa-bush  near  the  window 
on  the  south  side  of  the  cottage,  and  both  birds 
were  soon  seen  paying  frequent  visits  to  the  bush. 
We  felt  sure  another  brood  was  in  the  air.  Whether 
or  not  the  first  brood  were  now  shifting  for  thcm- 

63 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

selves,  we  did  not  know;  they  never  again  appeared 
upon  the  scene.  Finally,  on  the  morning  of  the 
Fourth  of  July,  the  foundation  of  a  new  nest  was 
started  in  the  syringa-bush  three  feet  from  the 
ground,  and  barely  four  feet  from  the  window! 

We  had  a  view  of  the  proceedings  that  the  first 
site  did  not  afford  us.  The  old  nest  appeared  to  be 
in  perfect  condition,  but  there  was  evidently  no 
thought  with  the  birds  of  using  it  again,  as  the 
robins  sometimes  do,  and  as  bluebirds  and  cliff 
swallows  always  do.  A  new  nest,  built  of  material 
almost  identical  with  that  of  the  old,  and  in  a  more 
exposed  position,  was  decided  upon.  It  progressed 
rapidly,  and  I  was  delighted  to  find  that  the  male 
assisted  in  the  building.  Indeed,  he  was  fully  as 
active  as  the  female.  Very  often  they  were  both 
in  the  nest  with  material  at  the  same  moment. 
They  seemed  to  agree  perfectly.  At  first  I  got  the 
impression  that  the  male  was  not  quite  as  decided 
as  the  female,  and  hesitated  more,  once  or  twice 
bringing  material  that  he  finally  rejected.  But  he 
soon  warmed  up  to  the  work  and  certainly  did  his 
share. 

With  most  species  of  our  birds  the  nest  is  en- 
tirely built  by  the  female.  With  the  robin,  the 
wood  thrush,  the  phoebe,  the  oriole,  the  humming- 
bird, the  pewee,  and  many  others,  the  male  is  only 
an  interested  spectator  of  the  proceeding.  He 
usually  attends  his  mate  in  her  quest  for  material, 

64 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

but  does  not  lend  a  hand,  or  a  bill.  I  think  the 
cock  wren  assists  in  nest-building.  I  know  the 
male  cedar-bird  does,  and  probably  the  male  wood- 
peckers do  also.  The  male  rose-breasted  grosbeak 
assists  in  incubation,  and  has  been  seen  to  sing 
upon  the  nest.  It  seems  fair  to  infer  that  he  assists 
in  the  nest-building  also,  but  I  am  not  certain  that 
he  does,  and  I  have  heard  another  observer  state 
that  in  a  nest  which  he  watched  the  female  ap- 
parently did  it  all. 

My  catbirds  both  worked  overtime  one  afternoon 
at  least,  being  on  their  job  as  late  as  seven  o'clock. 
In  three  days  the  nest  was  done,  all  but  touching 
up  the  interior.  During  the  construction  I  laid 
out  pieces  of  twine  and  bits  of  white  paper  on  the 
bushes  and  wire  netting,  also  some  loose  material 
from  the  outside  of  the  old  nest;  all  was  quickly 
used.  How  much  labor  the  birds  would  have  saved 
themselves  had  they  pulled  the  old  nest  to  pieces 
and  used  the  material  a  second  time!  I  have 
known  the  oriole  to  start  a  nest,  then  change  her 
mind,  and  then  detach  some  of  her  strings  and 
fibers  and  carry  them  to  the  new  site;  and  I  once 
saw  a  "chebec"  whose  eggs  had  been  destroyed  pull 
the  old  nest  to  pieces  and  rebuild  it  in  a  tree  a 
hundred  feet  away. 

The  male  catbird  is  slightly  brighter  and  fresher- 
looking  than  his  mate,  but  we  could  easily  tell  her 
by  her  often  simulating  the  actions  of  a  young  bird 

65 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

when  she  came  with  material  in  her  beak;  she  would 
alight  on  a  near-by  post  and  slightly  spread  and 
quiver  her  wings  in  a  tender,  beseeching  kind  of 
way.  She  would  do  this  also  when  bringing  food 
to  her  first  brood.  When  one  of  the  parent  birds 
of  any  species  simulates  by  voice  or  manner  the 
young  birds,  it  is  always  the  female;  her  heart 
would  naturally  be  more  a-quiver  with  anticipation 
than  that  of  the  male. 

On  the  fifth  day  the  nest  was  completed  and 
received  its  first  egg.  There  was  considerable  de- 
lay with  the  second  eggy  but  it  appeared  on  the 
second  or  third  day,  and  the  third  egg  the  follow- 
ing day.  Then  incubation  began.  In  twenty  days 
from  the  day  the  nest  was  begun,  the  birds  were 
hatched,  and  in  eleven  days  more  they  had  quietly 
left  the  nest. 

A  friend  of  mine  who  has  a  summer  home  on 
one  of  the  trout-streams  of  the  Catskills  discovered 
that  the  catbird  was  fond  of  butter,  and  she  soon 
had  one  of  the  birds  coming  every  day  to  the  dining- 
room  window  for  its  lump  of  fresh  butter,  and 
finally  entering  the  dining-room,  perching  on  the 
back  of  the  chair,  and  receiving  its  morsel  of  butter 
from  a  fork  held  in  the  mistress's  hand.  I  think 
the  butter  was  unsalted.  My  friend  was  con- 
vinced after  three  years  that  the  same  pair  of 
birds  returned  to  her  each  year,  because  each 
season  the  male  came  promptly  for  his  butter. 

66 


BIRD  INTIMACIES 

The  furtive  and  stealthy  manners  of  the  catljlrd 
contrast  strongly  with  the  frank,  open  manners  of 
the  thrushes.  Its  cousin  the  brown  thrasher  goes 
skulking  about  in  much  the  same  way,  flirting  from 
bush  to  bush  like  a  culprit  escaping  from  justice. 
But  he  does  love  to  sing  from  the  April  tree-tops 
where  all  the  world  may  see  and  hear,  if  said  world 
does  not  come  too  near.  In  the  South  and  \Yest 
the  thrasher  also  nests  in  the  vicinity  of  houses, 
but  in  New  York  and  New  England  we  must  look 
for  him  in  remote,  bushy  fields.  I  do  not  know  of 
any  bad  traits  that  go  with  the  thrasher's  air  of 
suspicion  and  secrecy,  but  I  do  know  of  one  that 
goes  with  the  catbird's — I  have  seen  her  perch  on 
the  rim  of  another  bird's  nest  and  deliberately 
devour  the  eggs.  But  only  once.  AYhether  or  not 
she  frequently  does  this,  I  have  no  evidence.  If 
she  does,  she  is  doubtless  so  sly  about  it  that  she 
escapes  observation. 

I  welcomed  the  catbird,  though  she  is  not  so 
attractive  a  neighbor  as  the  wood  thrush.  She  has 
none  of  the  wood  thrush's  dignity  and  grace.  She 
skulks  and  slinks  away  like  a  culprit,  while  tlie 
wood  thrush  stands  up  before  you  or  perches  upon 
a  limb,  and  turns  his  spotted  waistcoat  toward  you 
in  the  most  open  and  trusting  manner.  In  fact, 
few  birds  have  such  good  manners  as  the  wood 
thrush,  and  few  have  so  much  the  manner  of  a 
Paul  Pry  and  eavesdropper  as  the  catbird.     The 

67 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

flight  of  the  wood  thrush  across  the  lawn  is  such  a 
picture  of  grace  and  harmony,  it  is  music  to  the  eye. 
The  catbird  seems  saying,  *'There,  there!  I 
told  you  so,  pretty  figure,  pretty  figure  you  make!" 
But  the  courteous  thrush  (just  here  I  heard  the 
excited  calls  of  robins  and  the  hoarse,  angry  caw 
of  a  crow,  and  rushed  out  hatless  to  see  a  fish  crow 
fly  away  from  the  maple  in  front  of  the  Study, 
pursued  by  a  mob  of  screeching  robins.  He  took 
refuge  in  the  spruces  above  the  house  where  the 
collected  robins  abused  him  from  surrounding 
branches.  On  my  appearance  he  flew  away,  and 
the  robins  dispersed) — but  the  courteous  thrush,  I 
say,  invites  the  good-breeding  in  you  which  he 
himself  shows.  The  thrush  never  has  the  air  of  a 
culprit,  while  the  catbird  seldom  has  any  other 
air.  But  I  welcome  them  both.  One  shall  stand 
for  the  harmony  and  repose  of  bird  life,  and  the 
other  for  its  restlessness  and  curiosity.  The 
songs  and  the  manners  of  birds  correspond.  The 
catbird,  the  brown  thrasher,  and  the  mocking- 
bird are  all  theatrical  in  their  manners — full  of 
gestures  of  tail  and  wings,  and  their  songs  all 
imply  an  audience,  while  the  serene  melody  of  the 
thrushes  is  in  keeping  with  the  grace  and  poise  of 
their  behavior. 


V 

A  MIDSUMINIER  mYL 

As  I  sit  here  of  a  midsummer  day,  in  front  of  the 
wide-open  doors  of  a  big  hay-barn,  busy  with  my 
pen,  and  look  out  upon  broad  meadows  where  my 
farmer  neighbor  is  busy  with  his  haymaking,  I 
idly  contrast  his  harvest  with  mine.  I  have  to 
admit  that  he  succeeds  with  his  better  than  I  do 
with  mine,  though  he  can  make  hay  only  while  the 
sun  shines,  while  I  can  reap  and  cure  my  light  fan- 
cies nearly  as  well  in  the  shade  as  in  the  sun.  Yet  his 
crop  is  the  surer  and  of  more  certain  value  to  man- 
kind. But  I  have  this  advantage  over  him — I 
might  make  literature  out  of  his  haymaking,  or 
might  reap  his  fields  after  him,  and  gather  a  harvest 
he  never  dreamed  of.    What  does  Emerson  say? 

One  harvest  from  the  field 

Homeward  bring  the  oxen  strong; 

A  second  crop  thine  acres  yield. 
Which  I  gather  in  a  song. 

But  the  poet,  like  the  farmer,  can  reap  only 
where  he  has  sown,  and  if  Emerson  had  not  scat- 
tered his  own  heart  in  the  fields  his  Muse  would  not 
reap  much  there.  Song  is  not  one  of  the  instru- 
ments with  which  I  gather  my  harvest,  but  long 
ago,  as  a  farm  boy,  in  haymaking,  and  in  driving 

69 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  cows  to  and  from  the  pasture,  I  planted  myself 
there,  and  whatever  comes  back  to  me  now  from 
that  source  is  honestly  my  own.  The  second  crop 
which  I  gather  is  not  much  more  tangible  than  that 
which  the  poet  gathers,  but  the  farmer  as  little 
(suspects  its  existence  as  he  does  that  of  the  poet.  I 
can  use  what  he  would  gladly  reject.  His  daisies, 
his  buttercups,  his  orange  hawkweed,  his  yarrow, 
his  meadow-rue,  serve  my  purpose  better  than  they 
do  his.  They  look  better  on  the  printed  page  than 
they  do  in  the  haymow.  Yes,  and  his  timothy 
and  clover  have  their  literary  uses,  and  his  new- 
mown  hay  may  perfume  a  line  in  poetry.  When 
one  of  our  poets  writes,  "wild  carrot  blooms  nod 
round  his  quiet  bed,"  he  makes  better  use  of  this 
weed  than  the  farmers  can. 

Certainly  a  midsummer  day  in  the  country,  with 
all  its  sights  and  sounds,  its  singing  birds,  its 
skimming  swallows,  its  grazing  or  ruminating  cattle, 
its  drifting  cloud-shadows,  its  grassy  perfumes  from 
the  meadows  and  the  hillsides,  and  the  farmer  with 
his  men  and  teams  busy  with  the  harvest,  has 
material  for  the  literary  artist.  A  good  hay  day  is 
a  good  day  for  the  writer  and  the  poet,  because  it 
has  a  certain  crispness  and  pureness;  it  is  positive; 
it  is  rich  in  sunshine;  there  is  a  potency  in  the  blue 
sky  which  you  feel;  the  high  barometer  raises  your 
spirits;  your  thoughts  ripen  as  the  hay  cures.  You 
can  sit  in  a  circle  of  shade  beneath  a  tree  in  the 

70 


A  MIDSUMMER  IDYL 

fields,  or  in  front  of  the  open  hay-barn  doors,  as  I 
do,  and  feel  the  fruition  and  satisfaction  of  nature 
all  about  you.  The  brimming  meadows  seem  fairly 
to  purr  as  the  breezes  stroke  them;  the  trees  rustle 
their  myriad  leaves  as  if  in  gladness;  the  many- 
colored  butterflies  dance  by;  the  steel  blue  of  the 
swallows'  backs  glistens  in  the  sun  as  they  skim  the 
fields;  and  the  mellow  boom  of  the  passing  bumble- 
bee but  enhances  the  sense  of  repose  and  content- 
ment that  pervades  the  air.  The  hay  cures;  the 
oats  and  corn  deepen  their  hue;  the  delicious 
fragrance  of  the  last  wild  strawberries  is  on  the 
breeze;  your  mental  skies  are  lucid,  and  life  has 
the  midsummer  fullness  and  charm. 

As  I  linger  here  I  note  the  oft-repeated  song  of 
the  scarlet  tanager  in  the  maple  woods  that  crown 
a  hill  above  me,  and  in  the  loft  overhead  two  broods 
of  swallows  are  chattering  and  lining  up  their 
light-colored  breasts  on  the  rims  of  their  nests,  or 
trying  their  newly  fledged  wings  while  clinging  to 
its  sides.  The  only  ominous  and  unwelcome  sound 
is  the  call  of  the  cuckoo,  which  I  hear  and  have 
heard  at  nearly  all  hours  for  many  days,  and  which 
surely  bodes  rain.  The  countryman  who  first 
named  this  bird  the  *'rain  crow'*  hit  the  mark. 
The  cuckoo  is  a  devourer  of  worms  and  caterpillars, 
and  why  he  should  be  interested  in  rain  is  hard  to 
see.  The  tree-toad  calls  before  and  during  a 
shower,  mainly,  I  think,  because  he  likes  to  have 

71 


UNDER  THE  [MAPLES 

his  back  wet,  but  why  a  well-dressed  bird  like  the 
cuckoo  should  become  a  prophet  of  the  rain  is  ^ 
mystery,  unless  the  rain  and  the  shadows  are  con- 
genial to  the  gloomy  mood  in  which  he  usually 
seems  to  be.  He  is  the  least  sprightly  and  cheery 
of  our  birds,  and  the  part  of  doleful  prophet  in  our 
bird  drama  suits  him  well. 

A  high  barometer  is  best  for  the  haymakers  and 
it  is  best  for  the  human  spirits.  When  the  smoke 
goes  straight  up,  one's  thoughts  are  more  likely  to 
soar  also,  and  revel  in  the  higher  air.  The  persons 
who  do  not  like  to  get  up  in  the  morning  till  the 
day  has  been  well  sunned  and  aired  evidently 
thrive  best  on  a  high  barometer.  Such  days  do 
seem  better  ventilated,  and  our  lungs  take  in  fuller 
draughts  of  air.  How  curious  it  is  that  the  air 
should  seem  heavy  to  us  when  it  is  light,  and  light 
when  it  is  heavy!  On  those  sultry,  muggy  days 
when  it  is  an  effort  to  move,  and  the  grasshopper 
is  a  burden,  the  air  is  light,  and  we  are  in  the 
trough  of  the  vast  atmospheric  wave;  while  we 
are  on  its  crest,  and  are  buoyed  up  both  in  mind  and 
in  body,  on  the  crisp,  bright  days  when  the  ait 
seems  to  offer  us  no  resistance.  We  know  that  the 
heavier  salt  sea-water  buoys  us  up  more  than  the 
fresh  river  or  pond  water,  but  we  do  not  feel  in  the 
same  way  the  lift  of  the  high  barometric  wave. 
Even  the  rough,  tough-coated  maple-trees  in  spring 
are    quickly    susceptible    to    these    atmospheric 

72 


A  MIDSUMMER  IDYL 

changes.  The  farmer  knows  that  he  needs  sun- 
shine and  crisp  air  to  make  maple-sugar  as  well  as 
to  make  hay.  Let  the  high  blue-domed  day  with 
its  dry  northwest  breezes  change  to  a  warmer, 
overcast,  humid  day  from  the  south,  and  the 
flow  of  sap  lessens  at  once.  It  would  seem 
as  if  the  trees  had  nerves  on  the  outside  of  their 
dry  bark,  they  respond  to  the  change  so  quickly. 
There  is  no  sap  without  warmth,  and  yet  warmth, 
without  any  memory  of  the  frost,  stops  the  flow. 

The  more  the  air  presses  upon  us  the  lighter  we 
feel,  and  the  less  it  presses  upon  us  the  more  "logy" 
we  feel.  Climb  to  the  top  of  a  mountain  ten  thou- 
sand feet  high,  and  you  breathe  and  move  with  an 
effort.  The  air  is  light,  water  boils  at  a  low 
temperature,  and  our  lungs  and  muscles  seem  inade- 
quate to  perform  their  usual  functions.  There  is 
a  kind  of  pressure  that  exhilarates  us,  and  an 
absence  of  pressure  that  depresses  us. 

The  pressure  of  congenial  tasks,  of  worthy 
work,  sets  one  up,  w^hile  the  idle,  the  unemployed, 
has  a  deficiency  of  haemoglobin  in  his  blood. 
The  Lord  pity  the  unemployed  man,  and  pity  the 
man  so  over-employed  that  the  pressure  upon  him 
is  hke  that  upon  one  who  works  in  a  tunnel  filled 
with  compressed  air. 

Haying  in  this  pastoral  region  is  the  first  act  in 
the  drama  of  the  harvest,  and  one  likes  to  see  it 
well  staged,  as  it  is  to-day— the  high  blue  dome, 

73 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  rank,  dark  foliage  of  the  trees,  the  daisies  still 
white  in  the  sun,  the  buttercups  gilding  the  pas- 
tures and  hill-slopes,  the  clover  shedding  its 
perfume,  the  timothy  shaking  out  its  little  clouds 
of  pollen  as  the  sickle-bar  strikes  it,  most  of  the 
song-birds  still  vocal,  and  the  tide  of  summer 
standing  poised  at  its  full.  Very  soon  it  will  begin 
to  ebb,  the  stalks  of  the  meadow  grasses  will  be- 
come dry  and  harsh,  the  clover  will  fade,  the 
girlish  daisies  will  become  coarse  and  matronly, 
the  birds  will  sing  fitfully  or  cease  altogether,  the 
pastures  will  turn  brown,  and  the  haymakers  will 
find  the  hay  half  cured  as  it  stands  waiting  for 
them  in  the  meadows. 

What  a  wonderful  thing  is  the  grass,  so  common, 
so  abundant,  so  various,  a  green  summer  snow  that 
softens  the  outlines  of  the  landscape,  that  makes  a 
carpet  for  the  foot,  that  brings  a  hush  to  the  fields, 
and  that  furnishes  food  to  so  many  and  such  various 
creatures!  More  than  the  grazing  animals  live 
upon  the  grass.  All  our  cereals — wheat,  barley, 
rye,  rice,  oats,  corn — belong  to  the  great  family  of 
the  grasses. 

Grass  is  the  nap  of  the  fields;  it  is  the  under-' 
garment  of  the  hills.  It  gives  us  the  meadow,  a 
feature  in  the  northern  landscape  so  common  that 
we  cease  to  remark  it,  but  which  we  miss  at  once 
when  we  enter  a  tropical  or  semi-tropical  country. 
In  Cuba  and  Jamaica  and  Hawaii  I  saw  no  mead- 

74 


A  MIDSUMMER  IDYL 

ows  and  no  pastures,  no  grazing  cattle,  none  of  the 
genial,  mellow  look  which  our  landscape  presents. 
Harshness,  rawness,  aridity,  are  the  prevailing 
notes. 

From  my  barn-door  outlook  I  behold  meadows 
with  their  boundary  line  of  stone  fences  that  are 
like  lakes  and  reservoirs  of  timothy  and  clover. 
They  are  full  to  the  brim,  they  ripple  and  rock  in 
the  breeze,  the  green  inundation  seems  about  to 
overwhelm  its  boundaries,  all  the  surface  inequah- 
ties  of  the  land  are  wiped  out,  the  small  rocks  and 
stones  are  hidden,  the  woodchucks  make  their 
roads  through  it,  immersed  like  dolphins  in  the 
sea.  What  a  picture  of  the  plenty  and  the  flowing 
beneficence  of  our  temperate  zone  it  all  presents! 
Nature  in  her  kinder,  gentler  moods,  dreaming  of 
the  tranquil  herds  and  the  bursting  barns.  Surely 
the  vast  army  of  the  grass  hath  its  victories,  for 
the  most  part  noiseless,  peace-yielding  victories 
that  gladden  the  eye  and  tranquillize  the  heart. 

The  meadow  presents  a  pleasing  picture  before 
it  is  invaded  by  the  haymakers,  and  a  varied  and 
animated  one  after  it  is  thus  invaded;  the  mowing- 
machine  sending  a  shudder  ahead  of  it  through  the 
grass,  the  hay-tedder  kicking  up  the  green  locks 
like  a  giant,  many-legged  grasshopper,  the  horse- 
rake  gathering  the  cured  hay  into  windrows, 
the  white-sleeved  men  with  their  forks  pitching  it 
into  cocks,  and,  lastly,  the  huge,  soft-cheeked  loads 

75 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

of  hay,  towering  above  the  teams  that  draw  them, 
brushing  against  the  bar-ways  and  the  lower 
branches  of  the  trees  along  their  course,  slowly 
winding  their  way  toward  the  barn.  Then  the 
great  mows  of  hay,  or  the  shapely  stacks  in  the 
fields,  and  the  battle  is  won.  Milk  and  cream 
are  stored  up  in  well-cured  hay,  and  when  the 
snow  of  winter  fills  the  meadows  as  grass  fills 
them  in  summer,  the  tranquil  cow  can  still  rest 
and  ruminate  in  contentment. 

As  the  swallows  sweep  out  and  in  near  my  head 
they  give  out  an  angry  *'Sleet,  sleet,"  as  if  my  pres- 
ence had  suddenly  become  offensive  to  them.  I 
know  what  makes  the  change  in  their  temper.  The 
young  are  leaving  their  nests,  and  at  such  eventful 
times  the  parent  birds  are  alv/ays  nervous  and 
anxious.  When  any  of  our  birds  launch  a  family 
into  the  world  they  would  rather  not  have  spec- 
tators, and  you  are  pretty  sure  to  be  abused  if  you 
intrude  upon  the  scene.  The  swallow  can  put  a 
good  deal  of  sharp  emphasis  into  that  "Sleet, 
sleet,"  though  she  is  not  armed  to  make  any  of 
her  threats  good.  Who  knows  that  all  will  go  well 
with  them  when  they  first  make  the  plunge  into 
space  with  their  untried  wings?  A  careful  parent 
should  keep  the  coast  clear. 

They  have  been  testing  their  wings  for  several 
^ays,  clinging  to  the  sides  of  the  nest  and  beating 
the  wings  rapidly.     And  now  comes  the  crucial 

76 


A  MIDSUMMER  IDYL 

moment  of  letting  go  and  attempting  actual  flight. 
Several  of  them  have  already  done  it,  and  I  see 
them  resting  on  the  dead  limbs  of  a  plum-tree 
across  the  road.  But  more  are  to  follov/,  and  pa- 
rental anxiety  is  still  rife.  I  shall  be  sorry  when  the 
spacious  hayloft  becomes  silent.  That  affectionate 
*'Wit,  wit"  and  that  contented  and  caressing 
squeaking  and  chattering  give  me  a  sense  of  winged 
companionship.  The  old  barn  is  the  abode  of 
friendly  and  delicate  spirits,  and  the  sight  of  them 
and  the  sound  of  them  surely  bring  a  suggestion  of 
poetry  and  romance  to  these  familiar  scenes. 

Is  not  the  swallow  one  of  the  oldest  and  dearest 
of  birds?  Known  to  the  poets  and  sages  and 
prophets  of  all  peoples!  So  infantile,  so  helpless 
and  awkward  upon  the  earth,  so  graceful  and 
masterful  on  the  wing,  the  child  and  darling  of  the 
summer  air,  reaping  its  invisible  harvest  in  the 
fields  of  space  as  if  it  dined  on  the  sunbeams,  touch- 
ing no  earthly  food,  drinking  and  bathing  and 
mating  on  the  wing,  swiftly,  tirelessly  coursing  the 
long  day  through,  a  thought  on  wings,  a  lyric  in 
the  shape  of  a  bird!  Only  in  the  free  fields  of  the 
summer  air  could  it  have  got  that  steel-blue  of  the 
wings  and  that  warm  tan  of  the  breast.  Of 
course  I  refer  to  the  barn  swallow.  The  cliff 
swallow  seems  less  a  child  of  the  sky  and  sun, 
probably  because  its  sheen  and  glow  are  less,  and 
its  shape  and  motions  less  arrowy.     More  varied  m 

77 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

color,  its  hues  yet  lack  the  intensity,  and  its  flight 
the  swiftness,  of  those  of  its  brother  of  the  hay- 
lofts. The  tree  swallows  and  the  bank  swallows 
are  pleasing,  but  they  are  much  more  local  and 
restricted  in  their  ranges  than  the  barn-frequenters. 
As  a  farm  boy  I  did  not  know  them  at  all,  but  the 
barn  swallows  the  summer  always  brought. 

After  all,  there  is  but  one  swallow;  the  others 
are  particular  kinds  that  we  specify.  How  curious 
that  men  should  ever  have  got  the  notion  that  this 
airy,  fairy  creature,  this  playmate  of  the  sun- 
beams, spends  the  winter  hibernating  in  the  mud  of 
ponds  and  marshes,  the  bedfellow  of  newts  and 
frogs  and  turtles !  It  is  an  Old- World  legend,  born 
of  the  blindness  and  superstition  of  earlier  times. 
One  knows  that  the  rain  of  the  rainbow  may  be 
gathered  at  one's  feet  in  a  mud-puddle,  but  the 
fleeting  spectrum  of  the  bow  is  not  a  thing  of  life. 
Yet  one  would  as  soon  think  of  digging  up  a  rain- 
bow in  the  mud  as  a  swallow.  The  swallow  follows 
the  sun,  and  in  August  is  off  for  the  equatorial 
regions,  where  it  hibernates  on  the  wing,  buried 
in  tropical  sunshine. 

Well,  this  brilliant  day  is  a  good  day  for  the 
swallows,  a  good  day  for  the  haymakers,  and  a  good 
day  for  him  who  sits  before  his  open  barn  door  and 
weaves  his  facts  and  midsummer  fancies  into  this 
slight  literary  fabric. 


VI 
NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

The  wild  life  around  us  is  usually  so  unobtrusive 
and  goes  its  own  way  so  quietly  and  furtively  that 
we  miss  much  of  it  unless  we  cultivate  an  interest 
in  it.  A  person  must  be  interested  in  it,  to  para- 
phrase a  line  of  Wordsworth*s,  ere  to  him  it  will 
seem  worthy  of  his  interest.  One  thing  is  linked 
to  another  or  gives  a  clue  to  another.  There  is 
no  surer  way  to  find  birds*  nests  than  to  go  berrying 
or  fishing.  In  the  blackberry  or  raspberry  bushes 
you  may  find  the  bush  sparrow's  nest  or  the  indigo- 
bird's  nest.  Once  while  fishing  a  trout-stream  I 
missed  my  fish,  and  my  hook  caught  on  a  branch 
over  my  head.  When  I  pulled  the  branch  down, 
there,  deftly  saddled  upon  it,  was  a  humming- 
bird's nest.  I  unwittingly  caught  more  than  I 
missed.  On  another  occasion  I  stumbled  upon  the 
nest  of  the  water  accentor  which  I  had  never  before 
found;  on  still  another,  upon  the  nest  of  the 
winter  wren,  a  marvel  of  mossy  softness  and  deli- 
cacy hidden  under  a  mossy  log. 

Along  trout-streams  with  overhanging  or  shelv- 
ing ledges  the  fisherman  often  sees  the  nest  of  the 
phcebe-bird,  which  does  not  cease  to  please  for  the 
hundredth  time,  because  of  its  fitness  and  exquisite 

79 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

artistry.  On  the  newly  sawn  timbers  of  your 
porch  or  woodshed  it  is  far  less  pleasing,  because 
the  bird's  art,  bcrn  of  rocky  ledges,  only  serves  in 
the  new  environment  to  make  its  nest  conspicu- 
ous. 

Sitting  in  my  barn-door  study  I  see  a  vesper 
sparrow  fly  up  and  alight  on  the  telephone  wire  with 
nesting-material  in  her  beak.  I  keep  my  eye  upon 
her.  In  a  moment  she  drops  down  to  the  grassy 
and  weedy  bank  of  the  roadside  in  front  of  me  and 
disappears.  A  few  moments  later  I  have  her 
secret — a  nest  in  a  little  recess  in  the  bank.  That 
straw  gave  the  finishing  touch.  She  kept  her 
plac^e  on  the  nest  until  she  had  deposited  her  first 
egg  on  June  24th,  probably  for  her  second  brood  this 
season.  Some  young  vespers  flitting  about  farther 
up  the  road  are  presumably  her  first  brood.  Each 
day  thereafter  for  four  consecutive  days  she  added 
an  egg.  Incubation  soon  began  and  on  the 
10th  of  July  the  young  were  out,  the  little  sprawl- 
ing, skinny  things  looking,  as  a  city  girl  said 
when  she  first  beheld  newly-hatched  birds  in  a 
nest,  as  if  they  were  mildewed. 

These  ground-builders  among  the  birds,  taking 
their  chances  in  the  great  common  of  the  open 
fields,  at  the  mercy  of  all  their  enemies  every  hour — 
the  hoofs  of  grazing  cattle,  prowling  skunks,  foxes, 
weasels,  coons  by  night,  and  crows  and  hawks  by 
day — what  bird-lover  does  not  experience  a  little 

80 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

thrill  when  in  his  walk  he  comes  upon  one  of  their 
nests?  He  has  found  a  thing  of  art  among  the  un- 
kempt and  the  disorderly;  he  has  found  a  thing  of 
life  and  love  amid  the  cold  and  the  insensate.  Yet 
all  so  artless  and  natural !  Every  shred  and  straw 
of  it  serves  a  purpose;  it  fairly  warms  and  vivifies 
the  little  niche  in  which  it  is  placed.  What  a  center 
of  solicitude  and  forethought. 

Not  many  yards  below  the  vesper's  nest,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  road,  is  a  j unco's  nest.  You  may 
know  the  j unco's  nest  from  that  of  any  other 
ground-builder  by  its  being  more  elaborate  and 
more  perfectly  hidden.  The  nest  is  tucked  far  under 
the  mossy  and  weedy  bank,  and  only  a  nest-hunter 
passing  along  the  road,  with  "eye  practiced  hke  a 
blind  man's  touch"  and  with  juncos  in  mind,  would 
have  seen  it.  A  little  screen  of  leaves  of  the  hawk- 
weed  permits  only  the  rim  of  one  edge  of  the  nest 
to  be  seen.  Not  till  I  stooped  down  and  reached 
forth  my  hand  did  the  mother  bird  come  fluttering 
out  and  go  down  the  road  with  drooping  wings  and 
spread  tail,  the  white  quills  of  the  latter  fairly 
lighting  up  the  whole  performance. 

A  very  shy  and  artful  bird  is  the  junco.  I  had 
had  brief  glimpses  of  the  male  many  times  about  the 
place.  The  morning  I  found  the  nest  I  had  seen 
one  male  spitefully  pursuing  another  male  along 
the  top  of  the  stone  wall  opposite,  which  fact, 
paralleled  in  a  human  case,  would  afford  a  hint  for 

81 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

detectives  to  work  on.  The  junco  is  evidently  a 
very  successful  bird.  The  swarms  of  them  that 
one  sees  in  the  late  fall  and  in  the  early  winter  going 
south  is  good  evidence  of  this.  They  usually  precede 
jthe  white-throats  north  in  the  spring,  but  a  few 
linger  and  breed  in  the  high  altitude  of  the  Catskills. 

When  the  sun  shines  hot  the  sparrow  in  front  of 
my  door  makes  herself  into  a  sunshade  to  pro- 
tect her  nestlings.  She  pants  with  the  heat,  and 
her  young  pant  too;  they  would  probably  perish 
were  not  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun  kept  from  them. 
Another  vesper  sparrow's  nest  yonder  in  the  hill 
pasture,  from  which  we  flushed  the  bird  in  our  walk, 
might  be  considered  in  danger  from  a  large  herd  of 
dairy  cows,  but  it  is  wisely  placed  in  view  of  such  a 
contingency.  It  is  at  the  foot  of  a  stalk  of  Canada 
thistle  about  a  foot  and  a  half  high,  and  where,  for  a 
few  square  yards,  the  grazing  is  very  poor.  I  do 
not  think  that  the  chances  are  one  in  fifty  that  the 
hoof  of  a  cow  will  find  it.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
the  problem  presented  itself  to  the  bird  as  it  does  to 
me,  but  her  instinct  was  as  sure  a  guide  as  my 
reason  is  to  me — or  a  surer  one. 

The  vesper  sparrow  was  thus  happily  named  by 
a  New  England  bird-lover,  Wilson  Flagg,  an  old- 
fashioned  writer  on  our  birds,  fifty  or  more  years 
ago.  I  believe  the  bird  was  called  the  grass  finch  by 
our  earlier  writers.  It  haunts  the  hilly  pastures 
and  roadsides  in  the  Catskill  region.     It  is  often 

82 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

called  the  road-runner,  from  its  habit  of  running 
along  the  road  ahead  when  one  is  driving  or  walk- 
ing—a very  different  bird,  however,  from  the  road- 
runner  of  the  Western  States.  The  vesper  is 
larger  than  the  song  sparrow,  of  a  lighter  gray  and 
russet,  and  does  not  frequent  our  gardens  and 
orchards  as  does  the  latter.  In  color  it  suggests 
the  European  skylark;  the  two  lateral  white 
quills  in  its  tail  enhance  this  impression.  One 
season  a  stray  skylark,  probably  from  Long  Island 
or  some  other  place  where  larks  had  been  liberated, 
appeared  in  a  broad,  low  meadow  near  me,  and  not 
finding  his  own  kind  paid  court  to  a  female  vesper 
sparrow.  He  pursued  her  diligently  and  no  doubt 
pestered  her  dreadfully.  She  fled  from  him  pre- 
ciptately  and  seemed  much  embarrassed  by  the 
attentions  of  the  distinguished-looking  foreigner. 

When  the  young  of  any  species  appear,  the  solici- 
tude and  watchfulness  of  the  mother  bird  are 
greatly  increased.  Although  my  near  neighbor  the 
vesper  sparrow  in  front  of  my  door  has  had  proof  of 
my  harmless  character  now  for  several  weeks  and, 
one  would  think,  must  know  that  her  precious  secret 
is  safe  with  me,  yet,  when  she  comes  with  food  in 
her  beak  while  I  am  at  my  desk  ten  or  eleven  yards 
away,  she  maneuvers  around  for  a  minute  or  two, 
flying  up  to  the  telephone  wire  or  a  few  yards  up 
or  down  the  road,  and  finally  approaches  the  nest 
with  much  hesitation  and  suspicion,  lest  I  see  her 

83 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

in  the  act.     When   she  comes  again  and  again 
and  again,  she  is  filled  with  the  same  apprehension. 

After  a  night  of  heavy  but  warm  rain  two  of  the 
half-fledged  young  were  lying  on  the  ground  in 
front  of  the  nest,  dead.  There  were  no  murderous 
marks  upon  them,  and  the  secret  of  the  tragedy  I 
could  not  divine. 

What  automatons  these  wild  creatures  are,  ap- 
parently so  wise  on  some  occasions  and  so  absurd 
on  others!  This  vesper  sparrow  in  bringing  food 
to  her  young,  going  through  the  same  tactics  over 
and  over,  learns  no  more  than  a  machine  would. 
But,  of  course,  the  bird  does  not  think;  hence  the 
folly  of  her  behavior  to  a  being  that  does.  The 
wisdom  of  nature,  which  is  so  unerring  under 
certain  conditions,  becomes  to  us  sheer  folly  under 
changed  conditions. 

When  the  mother  bird's  suspicion  gets  the  better 
of  her,  she  often  devours  the  food  she  has  in  her 
beak,  so  fearful  is  she  of  betraying  her  precious 
secret.  But  the  next  time  she  comes  she  may  only 
maneuver  briefly  before  approaching  the  nest,  and 
then  again  hesitate  and  parley  with  her  fears  and 
make  false  moves  and  keep  her  eye  on  me,  as  if  ( 
had  only  just  appeared  upon  the  scene. 

One  of  the  best  things  a  bird-lover  can  have  in 
front  of  his  house  or  cabin  is  a  small  dead  tree  with 
numerous  leafless  branches.  Many  kinds  of  birds 
love  to  perch  briefly  where  they  can  look  around 

84 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

them.  I  would  not  exchange  the  old  dead  plum- 
tree  that  stands  across  the  road  in  front  of  my  lodge 
for  the  finest  living  plum-tree  in  the  world.  It 
bears  a  perpetual  crop  of  birds.  Of  course  the 
strictly  sylvan  birds,  such  as  the  warblers,  the 
vireos,  the  oven-bird,  the  veery  and  hermit 
thrushes,  do  not  come,  but  many  kinds  of  other 
birds  pause  there  during  the  day  and  seem  to  enjoy 
the  unobstructed  view. 

All  the  field  and  orchard  and  grove  birds  come. 
In  early  summer  the  bobolink  perches  there,  then 
tiptoes,  or  tip-wings,  away  to  the  meadows  below, 
pouring  out  his  ecstatic  song.  The  rose-breasted 
grosbeak  comes  and  shows  his  brilliant  front.  The 
purple  finch,  the  goldfinch,  the  indigo  bunting,  the 
bluebird,  the  kingbird,  the  phoebe-bird,  the  great 
crested  fiycatcher,  the  robin,  the  oriole,  the  chick- 
adee, the  high-hole,  the  downy  woodpecker,  the 
vesper  sparrow,  the  social  sparrow,  or  chippy,  pause 
there  in  the  course  of  the  day,  and  some  of  them 
several  times  during  the  day.  Occasionally  the 
scarlet  tanager  lights  it  up  with  his  vivid  color. 

But  more  than  all  it  is  the  favorite  perch  of  a  song 
sparrow  whose  mate  has  a  nest  not  far  off.  Here 
he  perches  and  goes  through  his  repertoire  of  three 
or  four  different  songs  from  dawn  till  nightfall, 
pausing  only  long  enough  now  and  then  to  visit  his 
mate  or  to  refresh  himself  with  a  little  food.  lie 
repeats  his  strain  six  times  a  minute,  often  preening 

85 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

his  plumage  in  the  intervals.  He  sings  several 
hundred  times  a  day  and  has  been  doing  so  for  many 
weeks.  The  house  wren  during  the  breeding-season 
repeats  his  song  thousands  of  times  a  day,  while 
the  red-eyed  vireo  sings  continuously  from  morning 
till  night  for  several  months.  How  a  conscious 
effort  like  that  would  weary  our  human  singers  and 
their  hearers !  But  the  birds  are  quite  unconscious, 
in  our  sense,  of  what  they  are  doing. 

When  we  pause  to  think  of  it,  what  a  spectacle 
this  singing  sparrow  presents!  A  little  wild  bird 
sitting  on  a  dead  branch  and  lifting  up  its  voice 
in  song  hour  after  hour,  day  after  day,  week  after 
week. 

In  terms  of  science  we  say  it  is  a  secondary  sexual 
characteristic,  but  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  spirit 
of  the  whole,  what  is  it  except  a  song  of  praise 
and  thanksgiving— joy  in  life,  joy  in  the  day,  joy 
in  the  mate  and  brood,  joy  in  the  paternal  and 
maternal  instincts  and  solicitudes,  a  voice  from  the 
heart  of  nature  that  the  world  is  good,  thanksgiving 
for  the  universal  beneficence  without  which  you 
and  I  and  the  little  bird  would  not  be  here?  In 
foul  weather  as  in  fair,  the  bird  sings.  The  rain  and 
the  cold  do  not  silence  him. 

There  are  few  or  no  pessimists  among  the  birds. 
One  might  think  the  call  of  the  turtle-dove,  which 
sounds  to  us  like  "woe,  woe,  woe,"  a  wail  of 
despair;  but  it  is  not.     It  really  means  *'love,  love, 

86 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

love.'*  The  plaint  of  the  wood  pewee,  pensive  and 
like  a  human  sigh,  is  far  from  pessimistic,  although 
in  a  minor  key.  The  cuckoo  comes  the  nearest  to 
being  a  pessimist,  with  his  doleful  call,  and  the 
!;atbird  and  the  jay,  with  their  peevish  and  com-' 
plaining  notes,  might  well  be  placed  in  that  cate-| 
gory,  were  it  not  for  their  songs  when  the  love  pas- 
sion makes  optimists  even  of  them.  The  strain  of 
the  hermit  thrush  which  floats  down  to  me  from  the 
wooded  heights  above  day  after  day  at  all  hours, 
but  more  as  the  shades  of  night  are  faUing — what 
does  this  pure,  serene,  exalted  strain  mean  but 
that,  in  Browning's  familiar  words, 

God's  in  his  heaven — 
All's  right  with  the  world! 

The  bird  may  sing  for  his  mate  and  his  brood  alone, 
but  what  puts  it  into  his  heart  to  do  that? 
Certainly   it   is    good   to    have    a  mate    and   a 

brood! 

A  new  season  brings  new  experiences  with  the 
same  old  familiar  birds,  or  new  thoughts  about 
them.  This  season  I  have  had  new  impressions  of 
our  cuckoos,  which  are  oftener  heard  than  seen. 
Of  the  two  species,  the  black-billed  and  the  yellow- 
billed,  the  former  prevails  in  the  latitude  of  New 
England,  and  the  latter  farther  south.  We 
cannot  hail  our  black-billed  as  "blithe  new- 
comer," as  Wordsworth  does  his  cuckoo.    "Doleful 

87 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

newcomer"  would  be  a  fitter  title.  There  is  noth- 
ing cheery  or  animated  in  his  note,  and  he  is  about 
as  much  a  "wandering  voice"  as  is  the  European 
bird.  He  does  not  babble  of  sunshine  and  of 
flowers.  He  is  a  prophet  of  the  rain,  and  the 
country  people  call  him  the  rain  crow.  All  his 
notes  are  harsh  and  verge  on  the  weird.  His 
nesting-instincts  seem  to  lead  him,  or  rather  her,  to 
the  thorn-bushes  as  inevitably  as  the  grass  finch's 
lead  her  to  the  grass. 

The  cuckoo  seems  such  an  unpractical  and 
inefficient  bird  that  it  is  interesting  to  see  it  doing 
things.  One  of  our  young  poets  has  a  verse  in  which 
he  sings  of 

The  solemn  priestly  bumble-bee 
That  marries  rose  to  rose. 

He  might  apply  the  same  or  similar  adjectives  to 
the  cuckoo.  Solemn  and  priestly,  or  at  least 
monkish,  it  certainly  is.  It  is  a  real  recluse  and 
suggests  the  druidical.  If  it  ever  frolics  or  fights, 
or  is  gay  and  cheerful  like  our  other  birds,  I  have 
yet  to  witness  it. 

During  the  last  summer,  day  after  day  I  saw  on^^ 
of  the  birds  going  by  my  door  toward  the  clump  ft. 
thorn-trees  with  a  big  green  worm  in  its  bill.  One 
afternoon  I  followed  it.  I  found  the  bird  sitting 
on  a  branch  very  still  and  straight,  with  the  worm 
still  in  its  beak.  I  sat  down  on  the  tentlike  thicket 
and  watched  him.    Presently  he  uttered  that  harsh, 

88 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

guttural  note  of  alarm  or  displeasure.  Then  after 
a  minute  or  two  he  began  to  shake  and  bruise  the 
worm.  I  waited  to  see  him  disclose  the  nest,  but 
he  would  not,  and  finally  devoured  the  worm. 
Then  he  hopped  or  flitted  about  amid  the  branches 
above  me,  uttering  his  harsh  note  every  minute  or 
two. 

After  a  half -hour  or  more  I  gave  it  up  and  parted 
the  curtain  of  thorny  branches  which  separated  the 
thicket  from  the  meadow  and  stepped  outside.  I 
had  moved  along  only  a  few  paces  when  I  discov- 
ered the  nest  on  an  outer  branch  almost  in  the  sun- 
shine. The  mother  bird  was  covering  her  half- 
grown  young.  As  I  put  up  my  hand  toward  her, 
she  slipped  off,  withdrew  a  few  feet  into  the 
branches,  and  uttered  her  guttural  calls. 

In  the  nest  were  four  young,  one  of  them  nearly 
ready  to  leave  it,  while  another  barely  had  its 
eyes  open;  the  eldest  one  looked  frightened,  while 
the  youngest  lifted  up  its  head  with  open  mouth 
for  food.  The  most  mature  one  pointed  its  bill 
straight  up  and  sat  as  still  as  if  petrified.  The  whole 
impression  one  got  from  the  nest  and  its  contents 
was  of  something  inept  and  fortuitous.  But  the 
cares  of  a  family  woke  the  parents  up  and  they  got 
down  to  real  work  in  caring  for  their  charge. 

The  young  had  a  curious,  unbirdlike  aspect  with 
threadlike  yellow  stripes,  and  looked  as  if  they  were 
wet  or  just  out  of  the  shell. 

89 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

That  strain  of  parasitism  in  the  blood  of  the 
cuckoo — how  long  in  the  history  of  its  race  since 
it  mastered  it  and  became  its  own  nest-builder? 
But  a  crude  and  barbarous  nest-builder  it  certainly 
is.  Its  "procreant  cradle"  is  built  entirely  of  the 
twigs  of  the  thorn-tree,  with  all  their  sharp  needle- 
like spines  upon  them,  some  of  the  twigs  a  foot  long, 
bristling  with  spines,  certainly  the  most  forbidding- 
looking  nest  and  nursery  I  ever  beheld — a  mere 
platform  of  twigs  about  four  inches  across,  carpeted 
with  a  little  shredded  brown  fibrous  material,  look- 
ing as  if  made  from  the  inner  bark  of  some  tree, 
perhaps  this  very  thorn. 

In  the  total  absence  of  the  tent  caterpillar  or 
apple-tree  worm,  which  is  their  favorite  food, 
cuckoos  seem  to  succeed  in  finding  a  large  green 
worm  here  in  the  orchard.  In  the  beech  woods 
they  can  find  a  forest  worm  that  is  riddling  the 
leaves  of  the  beeches.  The  robins  are  there  in 
force  and  I  hope  the  cuckoos  will  join  them  in  the 
destruction  of  the  worms.  It  is  interesting  to  see 
the  cuckoo  fly  by  several  times  a  day  with  a  big 
green  worm  in  its  beak.  Inefficient  as  it  seems, 
here  it  is  doing  things.  It  is  like  seeing  a  monk  at 
the  plough-handle.  It  is  a  solemn  creature;  its 
note  is  almost  funereal. 

Our  indigo  bunting  is  as  artful  and  secretive 
about  its  nesting-habits  as  any  of  the  sparrows. 
The  male  bird  seems  to  know  that  his  brilliant 

90 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

color  makes  him  a  shining  mark,  and  he  keeps  far 
away  from  the  nest,  singing  at  all  hours  of  the  clay 
in  a  circle  around  it,  the  radius  of  which  must  be 
more  than  fifty  yards.  In  one  instance  the  nest 
was  near  the  house,  almost  under  the  clothes-line, 
in  a  low  blackberry-bush,  partly  masked  by  tall- 
growing  daisies  and  timothy.  I  chanced  to  pass 
near  it,  when  off  went  the  little  brown  bird  v/ith  her 
sharp,  chiding  manners.  She  is  a  very  emphatic 
creature.     It  is  yea  and  nay  with  her  every  time. 

The  male  seems  like  a  bit  of  the  tropics.  He  is 
not  a  very  pleasing  singer,  but  an  all-day  one  and 
an  all-summer  one.  He  is  one  of  our  rarer  birds. 
In  a  neighborhood  where  you  see  scores  of  sparrows 
and  goldfinches  you  will  see  only  one  pair  of  indigo- 
birds.  Their  range  of  food  is  probably  very  lim- 
ited. I  have  never  chanced  to  see  them  taking 
food  of  any  kind. 

How  crowded  with  life  every  square  rod  of  the 
fields  and  woods  is,  if  we  look  closely  enough! 
Beneath  my  leafy  canopy  on  the  edge  of  the  beech 
woods  where  I  now  and  then  seek  refuge  from  a  hot 
wave,  reclining  on  a  cushion  of  dry  leaves  or  sitting 
with  my  back  against  a  cool,  smooth  exposure  of  the 
outcropping  place  rock,  I  am  in  a  mood  to  give 
myseK  up  to  a  day  of  little  things.  And  the  httle 
things  soon  come  trooping  or  looping  along. 

I  see  a  green  measuring-worm  taking  the  di- 
mensions of  the  rim  of  my  straw  hat  which  lies  on 

91 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  dry  leaves  beside  me.  It  humps  around  it  in 
an  aimless  sort  of  way,  stopping  now  and  then  and 
rearing  up  on  its  hind  legs  and  feeling  the  vacant 
space  around  it  as  a  blind  man  might  hunt  for  a 
lost  trail.  I  know  what  it  wants:  it  is  on  its 
travels  looking  for  a  place  in  which  to  go  through 
that  wonderful  transformation  of  creeping  worm 
into  a  winged  creature.  In  its  higher  stage  of 
being  it  is  a  little  silvery  moth,  barely  an  inch 
across,  and,  like  other  moths,  has  a  brief  season  of 
life  and  love,  the  female  depositing  its  eggs  in  some 
suitable  place  and  then  dying  or  falUng  a  victim 
to  the  wood  pewee  or  some  other  bird.  After  some 
minutes  of  groping  and  humping  about  on  my  hat 
and  on  dry  twigs  and  leaves,  it  is  lost  to  my  sight. 

A  httle  later  a  large  black  worm  comes  along. 
It  is  an  inch  and  a  quarter  long,  and  is  engaged  in 
the  same  quest  as  its  lesser  brother  of  the  green, 
transparent  coat.  Magnify  it  enough  times,  say, 
many  thousand  times,  and  what  a  terrible-looking 
monster  we  should  have — a  traveling  arch  of 
contracting  and  stretching  muscular  tissue,  higher 
than  your  head,  and  measuring  off  the  ground  a  rod 
or  more  at  a  time,  or  standing  twenty  feet  or  more 
high,  like  some  dragon  of  the  prime.  But  now  it  is 
a  puny  insect  of  which  the  caroling  vireo  overhead 
would  quickly  dispose. 

With  a  twig  I  lift  it  to  a  maple  sapling  close  by 
and  watch  it  go  looping  up  the  trunk.     Evidently  it 

92 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

does  n't  know  just  where  it  wants  to  go,  but  it 
finally  strikes  a  small  sugar  maple  and  humps  up 
that.  By  chance  it  strikes  one  of  the  branches  six 
feet  from  the  ground  and  goes  looping  up  that. 
Then,  by  chance,  in  its  aimless  Teachings  it  hits  one 
of  three  small  branches  and  climbs  that  a  foot  or 
more,  and  a  dry  twig,  six  or  eight  inches  long,  is 
seized  and  explored.  At  the  end  of  it  the  creature 
tarries  a  minute  or  more,  reaching  out  in  the  empty 
space,  then  turns  back  and  hits  a  smaller  twig  on 
this  twig  about  an  inch  long.  This  it  explores  over 
and  over  and  sounds  the  depths  that  surround  it, 
then  loops  back  again  to  the  end  of  the  main  twig 
it  has  just  explored,  profiting  nothing  by  experience; 
then  retraces  its  steps  and  measures  off  another 
small  branch,  and  is  finally  lost  to  sight  amid  the 
leaves. 

Has  the  course  of  life  up  through  geologic  time 
been  in  any  way  like  this?  There  has  been  the 
push  of  life,  the  effort  to  get  somewhere,  but  has 
there  been  no  more  guiding  principle  than  in  the 
case  of  this  worm?  The  singular  thing  about  the 
worm  is  its  incessant  reachings  forth  into  surround- 
ing space,  searching,  searching,  sounding,  sounding, 
as  if  to  be  sure  that  no  chance  to  make  a  new  con- 
nection is  missed. 

Finally  the  black  worm  comes  to  rest  and,  cling- 
ing by  its  hind  feet,  lets  itself  down  and  simulates 
a  small  dry  twig,  in  which  disguise  it  would  deceive 

93 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  sharpest-eyed  enemy.  No  doubt  it  passed 
the  night  posing  as  a  twig. 

Among  the  sylvan  denizens  that  next  came  upon 
the  stage  were  a  hummingbird,  a  Httle  red  newt, 
and  a  wood  frog.  The  hummer  makes  short 
work  of  everything:  with  a  flash  and  a  hum  it  is 
gone.  This  one  seemed  to  be  exploring  the  dry 
twigs  for  nesting-material,  either  spiders'  webs  or 
bits  of  lichen.  For  a  brief  moment  it  perched  on  a 
twig  a  few  yards  from  me.  My  ardent  wish  could 
not  hold  it  any  longer.  Truly  a  fairy  bird,  appear- 
ing and  vanishing  like  a  thought,  familiar  with  the 
heart  of  all  the  flowers  and  taking  no  food  grosser 
than  their  nectar,  the  winged  jewel  of  the  poets,  the 
surprise  and  delight  of  all  beholders — it  came  like 
a  burnished  meteor  into  my  leafy  alcove  and 
was  gone  as  quickly. 

All  sylvan  things  have  a  charm  and  delicacy  of 
their  own,  all  except  the  woodchuck;  wherever  he 
is,  he  is  of  the  earth  earthy.  The  wood  frog  is 
known  only  to  woodsmen  and  farm  boys.  He  is  a 
real  sylvan  frog,  as  pretty  as  a  bird,  the  color  of  the 
dry  leaves,  slender  and  elegant  in  form  and  quick 
and  furtive  in  movement.  My  feet  disturbed  one 
in  the  bed  of  dry  leaves.  Slowly  I  moved  my  hand 
toward  him  and  stroked  his  back  with  a  twig.  If 
you  can  tickle  a  frog's  back  in  any  way  you  put 
a  spell  upon  him.  He  becomes  quite  hypnotized. 
He  was  instantly  responsive  to  my  passes.    He 

94 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

began  to  swell  and  foreshorten,  and  when  I  used  my 
finger  instead  of  the  twig,  he  puffed  up  very  rapidly, 
rose  up  more  upon  his  feet,  and  bowed  his  head. 
As  I  continued  the  titillation  he  began  to  give 
forth  broken,  subdued  croaks,  and  I  wondered  if 
he  were  going  to  break  out  in  song.  He  did  not, 
but  he  seemed  loath  to  go  his  way.  How  different 
he  looked  from  the  dark-colored  frogs  which  in 
large  numbers  make  a  multitudinous  croaking  and 
clucking  in  the  little  wild  pools  in  spring!  He 
wakes  up  from  his  winter  nap  very  early  and  is  in 
the  pools  celebrating  his  nuptials  as  soon  as  the  ice 
is  off  them,  and  then  in  two  or  three  days  he  takes 
to  the  open  woods  and  assumes  the  assimilative 
coloring  of  the  dry  leaves. 

The  little  orange-colored  salamander,  a  most 
delicate  and  highly  colored  little  creature,  is  as 
harmless  as  a  baby,  and  about  as  slow  and  un- 
decided in  its  movements.  Its  cold  body  seems 
to  like  the  warmth  of  your  hand.  Yet  in  color 
it  is  as  rich  an  orange  as  the  petal  of  the  cardinal 
flower  is  a  rich  scarlet.  It  seems  more  than  an 
outside  color;  it  is  a  glow,  and  renders  the  crea- 
ture almost  transparent,  an  effect  as  uniform  as 
the  radiance  of  a  precious  stone.  Its  little,  inno- 
cent-looking, three-toed  foot,  or  three  and  a  half 
toed — how  unreptilian  it  looks  through  my  pocket 
glass!  A  baby's  hand  is  not  more  so.  Its  throb- 
bing throat,  its  close-shut  mouth,  its  jet-black  eyes 

95 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

with  a  glint  of  gold  above  them — only  a  close  view 
of  these  satisfies  one. 

Here  is  another  remarkable  transformation 
among  the  small  wild  folk.  In  the  spring  he  is  a 
dark,  slimy,  rather  forbidding  hzard  in  the  pools; 
now  he  is  more  beautiful  than  the  jewel-weed  in  the 
woods.  This  is  said  to  be  an  immature  form,  which 
returns  to  the  ponds  and  matures  the  next  season; 
but  whether  it  is  the  male  or  the  female  that  as- 
sumes this  bright  hue,  or  both,  I  do  not  know. 
The  coat  seems  to  be  its  midsummer  holiday  uni- 
form which  is  laid  aside  when  it  goes  back  to  the 
marshes  to  hibernate  in  the  fall. 

Wild  creatures  so  unafraid  are  sure  to  have  means 
of  protection  that  do  not  at  once  appear.  In  the 
case  of  the  newt  it  is  evidently  an  acrid  or  other 
disagreeable  secretion,  which  would  cause  any 
animal  to  repent  that  took  it  in  its  mouth.  It  is 
even  less  concerned  at  being  caught  than  is  the 
skunk,  or  porcupine,  or  stink-bug. 

In  my  retreat  I  was  unwittingly  intruding  upon 
the  domain  of  another  sylvan  denizen,  the  chip- 
munk. One  afternoon  one  suddenly  came  up  from 
the  open  field  below  me  with  his  pockets  full  of 
provender  of  some  sort;  just  what  sort  I  wondered, 
as  there  was  no  grain  or  seeds  or  any  dry  food  that 
it  would  be  safe  to  store  underground  for  the  winter. 

Beholding  me  sitting  there  within  two  yards  of 
his  den  was  a  great  surprise  to  him.    He  eyed  me 

96 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

a  long  time — squirrel  time — making  little,  spas- 
modic movements  on  the  flat  stone  above  his  den. 
At  a  motion  of  my  arm  he  darted  into  his  hole  with 
an  exultant  chip.  He  was  soon  out  with  empty 
pockets,  and  he  then  proceeded  to  sound  his  little 
tocsin  of  distrust  or  alarm  so  that  all  the  sylvan 
folk  might  hear.  As  I  made  no  sign,  he  soon 
ceased  and  went  about  his  affairs. 

All  this  time,  behind  and  above  me,  concealed  by 
a  vase  fern,  reposed  that  lovely  creature  of  the 
twilight,  the  luna  moth,  just  out  of  her  chrysalis, 
drying  and  inflating  her  wings.  I  chanced  to  lift 
the  fern  screen,  and  there  was  this  marvel!  Her 
body  was  as  white  and  spotless  as  the  snow,  and 
her  wings,  with  their  Nile-green  hue,  as  fair  and 
delicate  as — well,  as  only  those  of  a  luna  moth 
can  be.  It  is  as  immaculate  as  an  angel.  With 
a  twig  I  carefully  lifted  her  to  the  trunk  of  a  maple 
sapling,  where  she  clung  and  where  I  soon  left  her 
for  the  night. 

While  I  was  loitering  there  on  the  threshold  of 
the  woods,  observing  the  small  sylvan  folk,  about 
a  hundred  yards  above  me,  near  the  highway,  was 
a  bird's  nest  of  a  kind  I  had  not  seen  for  more  than 
a  score  of  years,  the  nest  of  the  veery,  or  Wilson's 
thrush.  Some  friends  were  camping  there  with 
their  touring-car  outfit  in  a  fringe  of  the  beech 
woods,  and  passed  and  repassed  hourly  within  a 
few  yards  of  the  nest,  and,  although  they  each  had 

97 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

sharp  eyes  and  sharp  ears,  they  had  neither  seen 
nor  heard  the  birds  during  the  two  days  they  had 
been  there. 

While  calhng  upon  them  I  chanced  to  see  the 
hurried  movements  of  a  thrush  in  the  low  trees  six 
or  seven  yards  away.  The  bird  had  food  in  its 
beak,  which  caused  me  to  keep  my  eye  upon  it. 
It  quickly  flew  down  to  a  small  clump  of  ferns  that 
crowned  a  small  knoll  in  the  open,  about  ten  feet 
from  the  border  of  the  woods.  As  it  did  so,  another 
thrush  AlCW  out  of  the  ferns  and  disappeared  in  the 
woods.  Their  stealthy  movements  sent  a  little 
thrill  through  me,  and  I  said.  Here  is  a  treasure. 
I  parted  the  ferny  screen,  and  there  on  the  top  of 
the  small  knoll  was  the  nest  with  two  half-fledged 
young. 

A  mowing-machine  in  a  meadow  in  front  of  my 
door  gave  an  unkind  cut  to  a  sparrow  that  had  a 
nest  in  the  clover  near  the  wall.  The  mower 
chanced  to  see  the  nest  before  the  sickle-bar  had 
swept  over  it.  It  contained  four  young  ones  just 
out  of  the  shell.  At  my  suggestion  the  mower 
carefully  placed  it  on  the  top  of  a  stone  wall.  The 
parent  birds  were  not  seen,  but  we  naturally 
reasoned  that  they  would  come  back  and  would 
alight  upon  the  wall  to  make  observations. 

But  that  afternoon  and  the  next  morning  passed, 
and  we  saw  no  anxious  bird  parents.  The  young 
lifted  up  their  open  mouths  whenever  I  looked  into 

98 


NEAR  VIEWS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

the  nest  and  seemed  to  be  more  contented  than 
abandoned  birds  usually  are.  The  next  night  was 
unseasonably  cold,  and  I  expected  to  find  the  nest- 
lings dead  in  the  morning;  but  they  were  not,  and, 
strangely  enough,  for  babes  in  the  wood  or  rather 
on  a  stone  wall,  they  seemed  to  be  doing  well. 
Maybe  the  mother  bird  is  still  caring  for  them,  I 
said  to  myself,  and  I  ambushed  myself  across  the 
road  opposite  to  them  and  watched. 

I  had  not  long  to  wait.  The  mother  sparrow 
came  slyly  up  and  dropped  some  food  into  an  open 
mouth  and  disappeared. 

Who  does  not  feel  a  thrill  of  pleasure  when,  in 
sauntering  through  the  woods,  his  hat  just  brushes 
a  vireo's  nest?  This  was  my  experience  one 
morning.  The  nest  was  like  a  natural  growth, 
hanging  there  like  a  fairy  basket  in  the  fork  of  a 
beech  twig,  woven  of  dry,  delicate,  papery,  brown 
and  gray  wood  products,  just  high  enough  to  escape 
prowling  ground  enemies  and  low  enough  to  escape 
sharp-eyed  tree  enemies.  Its  safety  was  in  its 
artless  art.  It  was  a  part  of  the  shadows  and  tlie 
green-and-brown  solitude.  The  weaver  had  bent 
down  one  of  the  green  leaves  and  made  it  a  part  of 
the  nest;  it  was  like  the  stroke  of  a  great  artist. 
Then  the  dabs  of  white  here  and  there,  given  by 
the  fragments  of  spiders'  cocoons — all  hcl])ed  to 
blend  it  with  the  flickering  liglit  and  sliade. 

I  gently  bent  down  the  branch  and  four  con- 

99 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

fident  heads  with  open  mouths  instantly  appeared 
above  the  brim.  The  mother  bird  meanwhile  was 
flitting  about  in  the  branches  overhead,  peering 
down  upon  me  and  uttering  her  anxious  "quay 
quay,*'  equivalent,  I  suppose,  to  saying:  "Get 
away!"    This  I  soon  did. 

Most  of  our  bird  music,  like  our  wild  flowers,  is 
soon  quickly  over.  But  the  red-eyed  vireo  sings 
on  into  September — not  an  ecstatic  strain,  but  a 
quiet,  contented  warble,  like  a  boy  whistling  at 
his  work. 


VII 
WITH  ROOSEVELT  AT  PINE  KNOT 

It  was  in  May  during  the  last  term  of  his  Presidency 
that  Roosevelt  asked  me  to  go  with  him  down  to 
Pine  Knot,  Virginia,  to  help  him  name  his  birds. 
I  stayed  with  him  at  the  White  House  the  night 
})efore  we  started.  I  remember  that  at  dinner  ^ 
there  was  an  officer  from  the  British  army  stationed 
in  India,  and  the  talk  naturally  turned  on  Indian 
affairs.  I  did  not  take  part  in  it  because  I  knew 
nothing  about  India,  but  Roosevelt  was  so  conver- 
sant with  Indian  affairs  and  Indian  history  that 
you  would  think  he  had  just  been  cramming  on  it, 
which  I  knew  very  well  he  had  not.  But  that 
British  officer  was  put  on  his  mettle  to  hold  his 
own.  In  fact,  Roosevelt  knew  more  about  India 
and  England's  relation  to  it  than  the  officer  seemed 
to  know.  It  was  amazing  to  see  the  thoroughness 
of  his  knowledge  about  India. 

The  next  morning  we  started  off  for  Virginia, 
taking  an  early  train. 

Pine  Knot  is  about  one  hundred  miles  from 
Washington.     I  think  we  left  the  train  at  Char* 

1  Mr.  Burroughs's  memory  pl.ayed  him  false  here.  The  in- 
cident he  speaks  of  was  at  a  dinner  in  tiie  White  House,  just 
before  starting  on  the  Yellowstone  trip,  in  1903.  C.  B. 

101 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

lottesville,  Virginia,  and  drove  about  ten  miles  to 
Pine  Knot;  the  house  is  a  big  barnhke  structure  on 
the  edge  of  the  woods,  a  mile  from  the  nearest 
farmhouse. 

Before  we  reached  there  we  got  out  of  the  wagon 
ind  walked,  as  there  were  a  good  many  warblers  in 
the  trees — the  spring  migration  was  on.  It  was 
pretty  warm;  I  took  off  my  overcoat  and  the 
President  insisted  on  carrying  it.  We  identified 
several  warblers  there,  among  them  the  black-poll, 
the  black-throated  blue,  and  Wilson's  black-cap. 
He  knew  them  in  the  trees  overhead  as  quickly  as 
I  did. 

We  reached  Pine  Knot  late  in  the  afternoon,  but 
as  he  was  eager  for  a  walk  we  started  off,  he  leading, 
as  if  walking  for  a  wager.  We  went  through  fields 
and  woods  and  briers  and  marshy  places  for  a  mile  or 
more,  when  we  stopped  and  mopped  our  brows  and 
turned  homeward  without  having  seen  many  birds. 

Mrs.  Roosevelt  took  him  to  task,  I  think,  when 
she  saw  the  heated  condition  in  which  we  returned, 
for  not  long  afterwards  he  came  to  me  and  said: 
*'Oom  John,  that  was  no  way  to  go  after  birds;  we 
were  in  too  much  of  a  hurry."  I  replied,  "No,  Mr. 
President,  that  isn't  the  way  I  usually  go  a-bird- 
ing."  His  thirst  for  the  wild  and  the  woods,  and 
his  joy  at  returning  to  these  after  his  winter  in  the 
White  House,  had  evidently  urged  him  on.  He 
added,  "We  will  try  a  different  plan  to-morrow." 

102 


WITH  ROOSEVELT  AT  PINE  KNOT 

So  on  the  morrow  we  took  a  leisurely  drive  along 
the  highways.  Very  soon  we  heard  a  wren  which 
was  new  to  me.  "That 's  Bewick's  wren,"  he  said. 
We  got  out  and  watched  it  as  it  darted  in  and  out 
of  the  fence  and  sang. 

I  asked  him  if  he  knew  whether  the  little  gray 
gnatcatcher  was  to  be  seen  there.  I  had  not  seen 
or  heard  it  for  thirty  years.  "Yes,"  he  replied,  'T 
saw  it  the  last  time  I  was  here,  over  by  a  spring  run.'* 

We  walked  over  to  some  plum-trees  where  there 
had  been  a  house  at  one  time.  No  sooner  had  we 
reached  the  spot  than  he  cried,  "There  it  is  now  !'* 
And  sure  enough,  there  it  was  in  full  song — a  little 
bird  the  shape  of  a  tiny  catbird,  with  a  very  fine 
musical  strain. 

As  we  were  walking  in  a  field  we  saw  some  birds 
that  were  new  to  me.  Roosevelt  also  was  puzzled 
to  know  what  they  were  till  we  went  among  them 
and  stirred  them  up,  discovering  that  they  were 
females  of  the  blue  grosbeak,  with  some  sparrows 
which  we  did  not  identify. 

In  the  course  of  that  walk  he  showed  me  a  place 
where  he  had  seen  what  he  had  thought  at  the  time 
to  be  a  flock  of  wild  pigeons.  He  described  how 
they  flew,  the  swoop  of  their  movements,  and  the 
tree  where  they  alighted.  I  was  skeptical,  for  it 
had  long  been  thought  that  wild  pigeons  were  ex- 
tinct, but  that  fact  had  not  impressed  itself  ni)on 
his  mind.    He  said  if  he  had  known  there  could  be 

103 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

any  doubt  about  it,  he  would  have  observed  them 
more  closely.  I  was  sorry  that  he  had  not,  as  it 
was  one  of  the  points  on  which  I  wanted  indisput- 
able evidence.  We  talked  with  the  colored  coach- 
man about  the  birds,  as  he  also  had  seen  them. 
His  description  agreed  with  Roosevelt's,  and  he  had 
seen  wild  pigeons  in  his  youth;  still  I  had  my  doubts. 
Subsequently  Roosevelt  wrote  me  that  he  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  they  had  been  mistaken 
about  their  being  pigeons. 

One  day  while  there,  as  we  were  walking  through 
an  old  weedy  field,  I  chanced  to  spy,  out  of  the 
corner  of  my  eye,  a  nighthawk  sitting  on  the 
ground  only  three  or  four  yards  away.  I  called 
Roosevelt's  attention  to  it  and  said,  *'Now,  Mr. 
President,  I  think  with  care  you  can  drop  your  hat 
over  that  bird."  So  he  took  off  his  sombrero  and 
crept  up  on  the  bird,  and  was  almost  in  a  position 
to  let  his  hat  drop  over  it  when  the  bird  flew  to  a 
near  tree,  alighting  lengthwise  on  the  branch  as  this 
bird  always  does.  Roosevelt  approached  it  again 
cautiously  and  almost  succeeded  in  putting  his  hand 
upon  it;  the  bird  flew  just  in  time  to  save  itself 
from  his  hand. 

One  Sunday  after  church  he  took  me  to  a  field 
where  he  had  recently  seen  and  heard  Lincoln's 
sparrow.  We  loitered  there,  reclining  upon  the 
dry  grass  for  an  hour  or  more,  waiting  for  the 
sparrow,  but  it  did  not  appear. 

104 


WITH  ROOSEVELT  AT  PINE  KNOT 

During  my  visit  there  we  named  over  seventy- 
five  species  of  birds  and  fowl,  he  knowing  all  of 
them  but  two,  and  I  knowing  all  but  two.  He 
taught  me  Bewick's  wren  and  the  prairie  warbler, 
and  I  taught  him  the  swamp  sparrow  and  one  of 
the  rarer  warblers;  I  think  it  was  the  pine  warbler. 
If  he  had  found  the  Lincoln  sparrow  again,  he 
would  have  been  one  ahead  of  me. 

I  remember  talking  politics  a  little  with  him 
while  we  were  waiting  for  the  birds,  and,  knowing 
that  he  was  expecting  Taft  to  be  his  successor,  I 
expressed  my  doubts  as  to  Taft's  being  able  to  fill 
his  shoes. 

**0h,  yes,  he  can,*'  he  said  confidently;  "you 
don't  know  him  as  well  as  I  do." 

"Of  course  not,"  I  admitted;  "but  my  feeling  is 
that,  though  Taft  is  an  able  and  amiable  man,  he 
is  not  a  born  leader." 

(I  am  glad  to  say  that  Mr.  Taft's  recent  course 
in  support  of  the  proposed  League  of  Nations  has 
quite  brought  me  around  to  Roosevelt's  estimate 
of  him.) 

Pine  Knot  is  a  secluded  place  in  the  woods.  One 
evening  as  we  sat  in  the  lamplight,  he  reading  Lord 
Cromer  on  Egypt,  and  I  a  book  on  the  man- 
eating  Hons  of  Tsavo,  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  sit- 
ting near  with  her  needlework,  suddenly  Roosevelt's 
hand  came  down  on  the  table  with  such  a  bang 
that  it  made  us  both  jump,  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt 

105 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

exclaimed  in  a  slightly  nettled  tone,  "Why,  my 
dear,  what  is  the  matter?'* 

He  had  killed  a  mosquito  with  a  blow  that  would 
almost  have  demolished  an  African  lion. 

It  occurred  to  me  later  that  evening  how  risky 
it  was  for  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  be 
so  unprotected — without  a  guard  of  any  kind — in 
that  out-of-the-way  place,  and  I  expressed  some- 
thing of  this  to  him,  suggesting  that  some  one  might 
*'kidnap"  him. 

*'0h,"  he  answered,  slapping  his  hand  on  his 
hip  pocket,  *'I  go  armed,  and  they  would  have  to 
be  mighty  quick  to  get  the  drop  on  me." 

Shortly  after  that,  to  stretch  my  legs  a  little  and 
listen  to  the  night  sounds  in  the  Virginia  woods,  I 
went  out  around  the  cabin  and  almost  immediately 
heard  some  animal  run  heavily  through  the  woods 
not  far  from  the  house.  I  thought  perhaps  it  was 
a  neighboring  dog,  but,  on  speaking  of  it  to  Mrs. 
Roosevelt,  was  told  that  two  secret  service  men 
came  every  night  at  nine  o'clock  and  stood  on 
guard  till  morning,  spending  the  day  at  a  farm- 
house in  that  vicinity.  She  did  not  let  the  Presi- 
dent know  of  this  because  it  would  irritate  him. 

The  only  flower  we  saw  there  which  was  new  to 
me  was  the  Indian  pink.  Roosevelt  seemed  to 
know  the  flowers  as  well  as  he  did  the  birds.  Pink 
moccasin-flowers  and  the  bird's-foot  violet  were 
common  in  that  locality. 

106 


WITH  ROOSEVELT  AT  PINE  KNOT 

On  our  return  trip,  Roosevelt's  secretary  bein^ 
on  the  train,  Roosevelt  threw  himself  into  the 
dictation  of  many  letters,  the  wrens  and  the  warb- 
lers already  sidetracked  for  the  business  of  the 
Administration. 

I  passed  another  night  at  the  WTiite  House,  and 
in  the  morning  early  we  went  out  on  the  White 
House  grounds  to  look  for  birds,  our  quest  seeming 
to  attract  the  puzzled  attention  of  the  passers-by. 

"They  often  stare  at  me  as  though  they  thought 
me  crazy,"  he  said,  *Vhen  they  see  me  gazing  up 
into  the  trees." 

"Well,  now  they  will  think  I  am  your  keeper," 
I  said. 

"Yes,  and  I  your  nurse,"  laughed  Mrs.  Roosevelt. 

When  I  left,  Roosevelt  gave  me  a  list  of  the  birds 
that  we  had  seen  w^hile  at  Pine  Knot  and  hoped 
that  I  would  sometime  write  up  the  trip;  in  fact, 
for  years  after,  whenever  we  would  meet,  almost 
the  first  thing  he  would  say  was,  "Have  you  written 
up  our  Pine  Knot  trip  yet,  Oom  John.^"  And  his 
disappointment  at  my  failure  to  do  so  was  always 
unmistakable.^ 

1  The  following  letter  may  be  of  interest  in  this  connection. 

C.  B. 
Dear  Oom  John: 

Did  you  ever  get  the  pamphlet  on  Concealing  Coloration? 
If  not,  I  will  send  you  another.  I  do  hope  that  you  will  incluile 
in  your  coming  volume  of  sketches  a  little  account  of  the  time 
you  visited  us  at  Pine  Knot,  our  little  Virginia  camp,  while  I 
was  President.     I  am  very  proud  of  you,  Oom  Johu,  and  I  want 

107 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  fact  that  you  were  my  guest  when  I  was  President,  and  that 
you  and  I  looked  at  birds  together,  recorded  there— and  don't 
forget  that  I  showed  you  the  blue  grosbeak  and  the  Bewick's 
wren,  and  almost  all  the  other  birds  I  said  I  would! 

Ever  yours, 

Theodore  Roosevelt 


vni 

A  STRENUOUS  IIOLmAY 

One  August  a  few  years  ago  (1918)  I  set  out  with 
some  friends  for  a  two  weeks*  automol^ile  trip  into 
the  land  of  Dixie — ^joy-riders  with  a  luxurious  out- 
fit calculated  to  be  proof  against  any  form  of  dis- 
comfort. 

We  were  headed  for  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains 
in  North  Carolina.  I  confess  that  mountains  and 
men  that  do  not  smoke  suit  me  better.  Still  I  can 
stand  both,  and  I  started  out  with  the  hope  that  the 
great  Appalachian  range  held  something  new  and 
interesting  for  me.  Yet  I  knew  it  was  a  risky  thing 
for  an  octogenarian  to  go  a-g^^^psying,  and  with 
younger  men.  Old  blood  has  lost  some  of  its  red 
corpuscles,  and  does  not  warm  up  easily  over  the 
things  that  moved  one  so  deeply  when  one  was 
younger.  More  than  that,  what  did  I  need  of  an 
outing?  All  the  latter  half  of  my  life  has  been  an 
outing,  and  an  "inning'*  seemed  more  in  order. 
Then,  after  fourscore  years,  the  desire  for  change, 
for  new  scenes  and  new  people,  is  at  low  ebb.  Tlie 
old  and  familiar  draw  more  strongly.  Yet  I  was 
fairly  enlisted  and  bound  to  see  the  Old  Smokies. 

Pennsylvania  is  an  impressive  State,  so  vast,  so 
diversified,    so    forest-clad— the    huge     unbroken 

109 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

Alleghany  ranges  with  their  deep  valleys  cutting 
across  it  from  north  to  south;  the  world  of  fine 
farms  and  rural  homesteads  in  the  eastern  half,  and 
the  great  mining  and  manufacturing  interests  in 
the  western,  the  source  of  noble  rivers;  and  the 
storehouse  of  many  of  Nature's  most  useful  gifts 
to  man. 

The  great  Lincoln  Highway,  of  course,  follows 
the  line  of  least  resistance,  but  it  has  some  formid- 
able obstacles  to  surmount,  and  it  goes  at  them  very 
deliberately;  and,  in  a  powerful  car,  gives  one  a 
sense  of  easy  victory.  But  I  smile  as  I  remember 
persons  with  lighter  cars  standing  beside  them  at 
the  foot  of  those  long,  winding  ascents,  nursing 
and  encouraging  them,  as  it  were,  and  preparing 
them  for  the  heavy  task  before  them.  An  almost 
perfect  road,  worthy  of  its  great  namesake,  but  an 
Alleghany  range  which  you  cannot  get  around  or 
through  gives  the  automobilist  pause. 

As  we  were  hurled  along  over  the  great  highway 
the  things  I  remember  with  the  most  satisfaction 
were  the  groups  or  processions  of  army  trucks  we 
met  coming  east.  The  doom  of  kaiserism  was 
written  large  on  that  Lincoln  Highway  in  that  army 
of  resolute,  slow-moving  army  trucks.  Dumb,  khaki- 
colored  fighters  on  wheels,  staunch,  powerful-look- 
ing, a  host  of  them,  rolling  eastward  toward  the 
seat  of  war,  some  loaded  with  soldiers,  some  with 
camp  equipments,  and  all  hinting  of  the  enormous 

110 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

resources  the  fatuous  Kaiser  liad  let  loose  upon 
himself  in  this  far-off  land.  On  other  highways 
the  weapons  and  materials  of  war  were  convert n 
toward  the  great  seaports  in  the  same  way.  The 
silent,  grim,  processions— how  iinnrcsslve  tliev 
were! 

Pittsburgh  is  a  city  that  sits  with  its  feet  in 
or  very  near  the  lake  of  brimstone  and  fire,  and 
its  head  in  the  sweet  country  air  of  the  hill-tops. 
I  think  I  got  nearer  the  infernal  regions  there  than 
I  ever  did  in  any  other  city  in  this  country.  One 
is  fairly  suffocated  at  times  driving  along  the  pub- 
lic highway  on  a  bright,  breezy  August  day.  It 
might  well  be  the  devil's  laboratory.  Out  of  such 
blackening  and  blasting  fumes  comes  our  civiliza- 
tion. That  weapons  of  war  and  of  destructiveness 
should  come  out  of  such  pits  and  abysses  of  Iiell- 
fire  seemed  fit  and  natural,  but  much  more  comes 
out  of  them — much  that  suggests  the  pond-lily 
rising  out  of  the  black  slime  and  muck  of  the  lake 
bottoms. 

We  live  in  an  age  of  iron  and  have  all  we  can 
do  to  keep  the  iron  from  entering  our  souls.  Our 
vast  industries  have  their  root  in  the  geologic  his- 
tory of  the  globe  as  in  no  other  past  age.  We  delve 
for  our  power,  and  it  is  all  barbarous  and  unhand- 
some. When  the  coal  and  oil  are  all  gone  and  we 
come  to  the  surface  and  above  the  surface  for  the 
white  coal,  for  the  smokeless  oil,  for  the  winds  and 

111 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  sunshine,  how  much  more  attractive  life  will  be! 
Our  very  minds  ought  to  be  cleaner.  We  may 
never  hitch  our  wagons  to  the  stars,  but  we  can 
hitch  them  to  the  mountain  streams,  and  make 
the  summer  breezes  lift  our  burdens.  Then  the 
silver  age  will  displace  the  iron  age. 

The  western  end  of  Pennsylvania  is  one  vasz; 
coal-mine.  The  farmer  has  only  to  dig  into  the 
side  of  the  hill  back  of  his  house  and  take  out  his 
winter's  fuel.  I  was  surprised  to  see  how  smooth 
and  gentle  and  grassy  the  hills  looked.  It  is  a 
cemetery  of  the  old  carboniferous  gods,  and  it 
seems  to  have  been  prepared  by  gentle  hands  and 
watched  over  with  kindly  care.  Good  crops  of  hay 
and  grain  were  growing  above  their  black  remains, 
and  rural  life  seemed  to  go  on  in  the  usual  way. 
The  shuffling  and  the  deformation  of  the  earth's 
surface  which  attended  the  laying  down  of  the 
coal-beds  is  not  anywhere  evident.  The  hand  of 
that  wonderful  husbandman.  Father  Time,  has 
smoothed  it  all  out. 

Our  first  camp  was  at  Greensborough,  thirty  or 
more  miles  southeast  of  Pittsburgh,  an  ideal  place 
— a  large,  open  oak  grove  on  a  gentle  eminence  well 
carpeted  with  grass,  with  wood  and  water  in 
abundance.  But  the  night  was  chilly.  Folding 
camp-cots  are  poor  conservers  of  one's  bodily 
warmth,  and  until  you  get  the  hang  of  them  and 
equip  yourself  with  plenty  of  blankets,  Sleep  enters 

112 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

your  tent  very  reluctantly.  She  tarried  with  me 
but  briefly,  and  at  three  or  four  in  the  morning  I 
got  up,  replenished  the  fire,  and  in  a  camp-chair 
beside  it  indulged  in  the  *'long,  long  thoughts'* 
which  belong  to  age  much  more  than  to  youth. 
Youth  w^as  soundly  and  audibly  sleeping  in  the 
tents  with  no  thoughts  at  all. 

The  talk  that  first  night  around  the  camp-fire 
gave  us  an  inside  view  of  many  things  about  which 
we  were  much  concerned.  The  ship  question  was 
the  acute  question  of  the  hour  and  we  had  with  us 
for  a  few  days  Commissioner  Hurley,  of  the  Ship- 
ping Board,  who  could  give  us  first-hand  informa- 
tion, which  he  did  to  our  great  comfort. 

Our  next  stop  was  near  Uniontown,  Pennsyl- 
vania, w^here  for  that  night  we  slept  indoors. 

On  the  following  day  one  of  the  big  cars  had  an 
accident — the  fan  broke,  and  the  iron  punctured 
the  radiator.  It  looked  as  if  we  should  be  delayed 
until  a  new  radiator  could  be  forwarded  from  Pitts- 
burgh. We  made  our  way  slowly  to  Conncllsville, 
where  there  was  a  good  garage,  but  the  best  work- 
men there  shook  their  heads;  they  said  a  new  radia- 
tor was  the  only  remedy.  All  four  arms  of  tlie  fan 
were  broken  off  and  there  was  no  way  to  mend 
them.  This  verdict  put  Mr.  Ford  on  his  mettle. 
**Give  me  a  chance,"  he  said,  and,  pulling  oil  his 
coat  and  rolling  up  his  sleeves,  he  fell  to  work.  In 
two  hours  we  were  ready  to  go  ahead.     By  the  aid 

113 


UNDER  THE  IVIAPLES 

of  drills  and  copper  wire  the  master  mechanic  had 
stitched  the  severed  arms  to  their  stubs,  soldered 
up  the  hole  in  the  radiator,  and  the  disabled  car 
was  again  in  running  order. 

On  August  the  31st  we  made  our  camp  on  the 
'banks  of  a  large,  clear  creek  in  West  Virginia  called 
Horseshoe  Run.  A  smooth  field  across  the  road 
from  the  creek  seemed  attractive,  and  I  got  the 
reluctant  consent  of  the  widow  who  owned  it  tct 
pitch  our  camp  there,  though  her  patch  of  roasting- 
ears  near  by  made  her  hesitate;  she  had  probably 
had  experiences  with  gypsy  parties,  and  was  not 
impressed  in  our  favor  even  when  I  gave  her  the 
names  of  two  well-known  men  in  our  party.  But 
Edison  was  not  attracted  by  the  widow's  open 
field;  the  rough,  grassy  m-argin  of  the  creek  suited 
him  better,  and  its  proximity  to  the  murmuring, 
eddying,  rocky  current  appealed  to  us  all,  albeit  it 
necessitated  our  mess-tent  being  pitched  astride  a 
shallow  gully,  and  our  individual  tents  elbowing  one 
another  in  the  narrow  spaces  between  the  boulders. 
But  wild  Nature,  when  you  can  manage  her,  is  what 
the  camper-out  wants.  Pure  elements — air,  water, 
earth — these  settle  the  question;  Camp  Horseshoe 
Run  had  them  all.  It  was  here,  I  think,  that  I 
got  my  first  view  of  the  nonpareil,  or  painted  bunt- 
ing— a  bird  rarely  seen  north  of  the  Potomac. 

An  interesting  object  near  our  camp  was  an  old, 
unused  grist-mill,  with  a  huge,  decaying  overshot 

114 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

oaken  water-wheel.     We  all  perched  on  the  wheel 
and  had  our  pictures  taken. 

At  our  lunch  that  day,  by  the  side  of  a  spring,  a 
twelve-year-old  girl  appeared  in  the  road  above  us 
with  a  pail  of  apples  for  sale.     We  invited  her  into 
our  camp,  an  invitation  she  timidly  accepted.    We 
took  all  of  her  apples.     I  can  see  her  yet  with  her 
shining  eyes  as  she  crumpled  the  new  one-dollar 
bill  which  one  of  the  party  placed  in  her  hand. 
She  did  not  look  at  it;  the  feel  of  it  told  the  story 
to  her.     We  quizzed  her  about  many  things  and 
got  straight,  clear-cut  answers — a  very  firm,  level- 
headed little  maid.      Her  home  was  on  the  hill 
above  us.    We  told  her  the  names  of  some  of  the 
members  of  the  party,  and  after  she  had  returned 
home  we  saw  an  aged  man  come  out  to  the  gate 
and  look  down  upon  us.     An  added  interest  was 
felt  whenever  we  came  in  contact  with  any  of  the 
local  population.     Birds  and  flowers  and  trees  and 
springs   and   mills   were    something,    but   human 
flowers  and  rills  of  human  life  were  better.     I  do 
not  forget  the  other  maiden,  twelve  or  thirteen 
years  old,  to  whom  we  gave  a  lift  of  a  few  miles  on 
her  way.     She  had  been  on  a  train  five  times,  and 
once  had  been  forty  miles  from  home.     Her  mother 
was  dead  and  her  father  lived  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
she  was  living  with  her  grandfather.     When  asked 
how  far  it  was  to  Elkins  she  said,  "Ever  and  ever 
so  many  miles." 

115 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

The  conspicuous  roadside  flowers  for  hundreds 
of  miles,  in  fact,  all  the  way  from  Pennsylvania  to 
North  Carolina,  were  the  purple  eupatorium,  or 
Joe-Pye-weed,  and  the  ironweed — stately,  hardy 
growths,  and  very  pleasing  to  look  upon,  the  iron- 
weed  with  its  crimson  purple,  and  the  eupatorium 
with  its  massive  head  of  soft,  pinkish  purple. 

August  the  22d  we  reached  Cheat  River  in  West 
Virginia,  a  large,  clear  mountain  trout-brook. 
It  crossed  our  path  many  times  that  day.  Every 
mountain  we  crossed  showed  us  Cheat  River  on 
the  other  side  of  it.  It  was  flowing  by  a  very 
devious  course  northwest  toward  the  Ohio.  We 
were  working  south  and  east. 

We  made  our  camp  that  night  on  the  grounds 
of  the  Cheat  Mountain  Club,  on  the  banks  of  the 
river — an  ideal  spot.  The  people  at  the  big  club- 
house gave  us  a  hospitable  welcome  and  added 
much  to  our  comfort.  I  found  the  forests  and 
streams  of  this  part  of  West  Virginia  much  like 
those  of  the  Catskills,  only  on  a  larger  scale,  and 
the  climate  even  colder.  That  night  the  mercury 
dropped  to  thirty.  On  June  the  24th  they  had 
a  frost  that  killed  all  their  garden  truck.  The 
paper  outlines  of  big  trout  which  covered  the 
walls  in  the  main  room  of  the  clubhouse  told  the 
story  of  the  rare  sport  the  club-members  have  there. 
Evidently  Cheat  River  deserves  a  better  name. 

The  mountains  and  valleys  of  the  Virginias  all 

116 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

present  a  marked  contrast  to  those  of  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania.  They  were  not  rubbed  down 
and  scooped  out  by  the  great  ice-sheet  that  played 
such  a  part  in  shaping  our  northern  landscapes. 
The  valleys  are  markedly  V-shaped,  while  ours  are 
markedly  U-shaped.  The  valley  sides  are  so  steep 
that  they  are  rarely  cultivated;  the  farm  land  for 
the  most  part  lies  on  the  tops  of  the  broad,  rounded 
hills,  though  we  passed  through  some  broad,  open 
river  valleys  that  held  miles  upon  miles  of  beautiful 
farms  in  which  hay  and  oats  were  still  being  har- 
vested. Everywhere  were  large  fields  of  buck- 
wheat, white  with  bloom,  and,  I  presume,  humming 
with  bees. 

Here  and  there,  by  the  rocks  and  the  boulders 
strewn  over  the  landscape,  I  saw  evidences  of  large 
local  glaciers  that  had  hatched  in  these  mountains 
during  the  great  Ice  Age. 

We  made  camp  at  Bolar  Springs  on  August  the 
23d — a  famous  spring,  and  a  beautiful  spot.  We 
pitched  our  tents  among  the  sugar  maples,  and 
some  of  the  party  availed  themselves  of  the 
public  bathhouse  that  spanned  the  overflow  of 
the  great  spring.  The  next  night  our  camp  was 
at  Wolf  Creek,  not  far  from  the  Narrows — a  beauti- 
ful spot,  marred  only  by  its  proximity  to  the  dusty 
highway.  It  was  on  the  narrow,  grassy  margin  of 
a  broad,  limpid  creek  in  which  the  fish  were  jump- 
ing.   Some  grazing  horses  disturbed  my  sleep  early 

117 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

in  the  morning,  but  on  the  whole  I  have  only  pleas- 
ant memories  of  our  camp  at  Wolf  Creek. 

We  were  near  a  week  in  Virginia  and  West  Vir- 
ginia, crossing  many  times  the  border  between  the 
Iwo  States,  now  in  one,  then  in  the  other,  all  the 
time  among  the  mountains,  with  a  succession  of 
glorious  views  from  mountain-tops  and  along  broad, 
fertile  valleys.  Now  we  were  at  Warm  Springs, 
then  at  Hot  Springs,  then  at  White  Sulphur,  or  at 
Sweet  Water  Springs.  Soft  water  and  hard  water, 
cold  water  and  warm  water,  mineral  water  and 
trout-streams,  companion  one  another  in  these 
mountains.  This  part  of  the  continent  got  much 
folded  and  ruptured  and  mixed  up  in  the  building, 
and  the  elements  are  unevenly  distributed.' 

I  think  to  most  of  us  West  Virginia  had  always 
been  a  rather  hazy  proposition,  and  we  were  glad 
to  get  a  clear  impression  of  it.  We  certainly 
became  pretty  intimate  with  the  backbone  of  the 
continent — or  with  its  many  backbones,  as  its 
skeleton  seems  to  be  a  very  multiplex  affair.  The 
backbones  of  continents  usually  get  broken  in  many 
places,  but  they  serve  their  purpose  just  as  well. 
In  fact,  our  old  Earth  is  more  like  an  articulate 
than  a  vertebrate.  Its  huge  shell  is  in  many  sections. 

One  of  our  camps  we  named  Camp  Lee,  the  name 
of  the  owner  of  the  farm.  One  of  the  boys  there, 
Robert  E.  Lee,  made  himself  very  useful  in  bring- 
ing wood  and  doing  other  errands. 

118 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

A  privation,  which  I  think  Mr.  Edison  and  I 
felt  more  than  did  the  others,  was  the  scanty  or 
delayed  war  news ;  the  local  papers,  picked  up  here 
and  there,  gave  only  brief  summaries,  and  when  in 
the  larger  towns  we  could  get  some  of  the  great' 
dailies,  the  news  was  a  day  or  two  old.  When  one 
has  hung  on  the  breath  of  the  newspapers  for  four 
exciting  years,  one  is  lost  when  cut  off  from  them. 

Such  a  trip  as  we  were  taking  was,  of  course,  a 
kind  of  a  lark,  especially  to  the  younger  members 
of  the  party.  Upon  Alleghany  Mountain,  near 
Barton,  West  Virginia,  a  farmer  was  cradling  oats 
on  a  side-hill  below  the  road.  Our  procession 
stopped,  and  the  irrepressible  Ford  and  Firestone 
were  soon  taking  turns  at  cradling  oats,  but  with 
doubtful  success.  A  photograph  shows  the  farmer 
and  Mr.  Ford  looking  on  with  broad  smiles,  watch- 
ing Mr.  Firestone  with  the  fingers  of  the  cradle 
tangled  in  the  oats  and  weeds,  a  smile  on  his  face 
also,  but  decidedly  an  equivocal  smile — the  trick 
was  not  so  easy  as  it  looked.  Evidently  Mr.  Ford 
had  not  forgotten  his  cradling  days  on  the  home 
farm  in  Michigan. 

Camp-life  is  a  primitive  affair,  no  matter  how 
many  conveniences  you  have,  and  things  of  the 
mind  keep  pretty  well  in  the  background.  Occa- 
sionally around  the  campfire  we  drew  Edison  out 
on  chemical  problems,  and  heard  formula  after 
formula  come  from  his  lips  as  if  he  were  reading 

119 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

them  from  a  book.  As  a  practical  chemist  he  per- 
haps has  few,  if  any,  equals  in  this  country.  It 
was  easy  to  draw  out  Mr.  Ford  on  mechanical 
problems.  There  is  always  pleasure  and  profit  in 
hearing  a  master  discuss  his  own  art. 

A  plunge  into  the  South  for  a  Northern  man  is 
in  many  ways  a  plunge  into  the  Past.  As  soon  as 
you  get  into  Virginia  there  is  a  change.  Things  and 
people  in  the  South  are  more  local  and  provincial 
than  in  the  North.  For  the  most  part,  in  certain 
sections,  at  least,  the  county  builds  the  roads 
(macadam),  and  not  the  State.  Hence  you  pass 
from  a  fine  stone  road  in  one  county  on  to  a  rough 
dirt  road  in  the  next.  Toll-gates  appear.  In  one 
case  we  paid  toll  at  the  rate  of  two  cents  a  mile  for 
the  cars,  and  five  cents  for  the  trucks.  Grist-mills 
are  seen  along  the  way,  driven  by  overshot  wheels, 
and  they  are  usually  at  work.  A  man  or  a  boy  on 
horseback,  with  a  bag  of  grain  or  of  meal  behind 
him,  going  to  or  returning  from  the  mill,  is  a  fre- 
quent sight;  or  a  woman  on  horseback,  on  a  side- 
saddle, with  a  baby  in  her  arms,  attracts  your 
attention.  Thus  my  grandmother  went  to  mill  in 
pioneer  days  in  the  Catskills. 

The  absence  of  bridges  over  the  small  streams 
was  to  us  a  novel  feature.  One  of  the  party  called 
these  fording  places,  "Irish  bridges."  They  are 
made  smooth  and  easy,  and  gave  us  no  trouble. 
Another    Southern    feature,    indicating    how    far 

120 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

behind  our  Northern  and  more  scientific  farming 
the  South  still  is,  are  the  groups  of  small  haystacks 
in  the  meadows  with  poles  sticking  out  of  their 
tops,  letting  the  rain  and  the  destructive  bacteria 
into  their  hearts.  Among  the  old-fashioned  fea- 
tures of  the  South  much  to  be  commended  are 
the  large  families.  In  a  farmhouse  near  which  we 
made  camp  one  night  there  were  thirteen  children, 
the  eldest  of  whom  was  at  the  front  in  France. 
The  schools  were  in  session  in  late  August,  and  the 
schoolrooms  were  well  filled  with  pupils. 

No  doubt  there  are  many  peculiar  local  customs 
of  which  the  hurrying  tourist  gets  no  inkling.  At 
a  station  in  the  mountains  of  North  Carolina  a 
youngish,  well-clad  countryman,  smoking  his  pipe, 
stood  within  a  few  feet  of  my  friend  and  me  and 
gazed  at  us  with  the  simple,  blank  curiosity  of  a 
child.  There  was  not  the  slightest  gleam  of  intelli- 
gent interest,  or  self -consciousness  in  his  face;  it 
was  the  frank  stare  of  a  five-year-old  boy.  He 
belongs  to  a  type  one  often  sees  in  the  mountain 
districts  of  the  South — good  human  stuff,  valiant 
as  soldiers,  and  industrious  as  farmers,  but  so 
unacquainted  with  the  great  outside  world,  their 
unsophistication  is  shocking  to  see. 

It  often  seemed  to  me  that  we  were  a  luxuriously 
equipped  expedition  going  forth  to  seek  discomfort, 
for  discomfort  in  several  forms — dust,  rough  roads, 
heat,  cold,  irregular  hours,  accidents — is  pretty 

121 


UNDER  THE  IVIAPLES 

sure  to  come  to  those  who  go  a-g:^T)sying  in  the 
South.  But  discomfort,  after  all,  is  what  the 
camper-out  is  unconsciously  seeking.  We  grow 
weary  of  our  luxuries  and  conveniences.  We  react 
against  our  complex  civilization,  and  long  to  get 
back  for  a  time  to  first  principles.  We  cheerfully 
endure  wet,  cold,  smoke,  mosquitoes,  black  flies, 
and  sleepless  nights,  just  to  touch  naked  reality 
once  more. 

Our  two  chief  characters  presented  many  con- 
trasts: Mr.  Ford  is  more  adaptive,  more  indiffer- 
ent to  places,  than  is  Mr.  Edison.  His  interest  in 
the  stream  is  in  its  potential  water-power.  He 
races  up  and  down  its  banks  to  see  its  fall,  and 
where  power  could  be  developed.  He  never  ceases 
to  lament  so  much  power  going  to  waste,  and  points 
out  that  if  the  streams  w^ere  all  harnessed,  as  they 
could  easily  be,  farm  labor  everywhere,  indoors  and 
out,  could  be  greatly  lessened.  He  dilates  upon 
the  benefit  that  would  accrue  to  every  country 
neighborhood  if  the  water-power  that  is  going  to 
waste  in  its  valley  streams  were  set  to  work  in 
some  useful  industry,  furnishing  employment  to 
the  farmers  and  others  in  the  winter  seasons  when 
the  farms  need  comparatively  little  attention.  He 
is  always  thinking  in  terms  of  the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number.  He  aims  to  place  his  inven- 
tions within  reach  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people. 
As  with  his  touring-car,  so  with  his  tractor  engine, 

122 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

he  has  had  the  same  end  in  view.  Nor  does  he 
forget  the  housewife.  He  has  plans  afoot  for  bring- 
ing power  into  every  household  that  will  greatly 
lighten  the  burden  of  the  women-folk. 

Partly  owing  to  his  more  advanced  age,  but 
mainly,  no  doubt,  to  his  meditative  and  introspec- 
tive cast  of  mind,  Mr.  Edison  is  far  less  active  than 
is  Mr.  Ford.  When  we  would  pause  for  the  mid- 
day lunch,  or  to  make  camp  at  the  end  of  the  day, 
Mr.  Edison  would  sit  in  his  car  and  read,  or  curl 
up,  boy  fashion,  under  a  tree  and  take  a  nap,  while 
Mr.  Ford  would  inspect  the  stream  or  busy  him- 
self in  getting  wood  for  the  fire.  Mr.  Ford  is  a  run^ 
ner  and  a  high  kicker,  and  frequently  challenged 
some  of  the  party  to  race  with  him.  He  is  also  a  per- 
sistent walker,  and  from  every  camp,  both  morning 
and  evening,  he  sallied  forth  for  a  brisk  half -hour 
walk.  His  cheerfulness  and  adaptability  on  all 
occasions,  and  his  optimism  in  regard  to  all  the 
great  questions,  are  remarkable.  His  good-will  and 
tolerance  are  boundless.  Notwithstanding  his 
practical  turn  of  mind,  and  his  mastery  of  the 
mechanical  arts  and  of  business  methods,  he  is 
through  and  through  an  idealist.  As  tender  as  a 
woman,  he  is  much  more  tolerant.  He  looks  like 
a  poet,  and  conducts  his  life  like  a  philosopher.  No 
poet  ever  expressed  himself  through  his  work  more 
completely  than  Mr.  Ford  has  expressed  himself 
through  his  car  and  his  tractor  engine.    They  typify 

123 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

him;  not  imposing,  nor  complex,  less  expressive  of 
power  and  mass  than  of  simplicity,  adaptability, 
and  universal  service,  they  typify  the  combination 
of  powers  and  qualities  which  make  him  a  benefi- 
cent, a  likable,  and  a  unique  personality.    Those 
who  meet  him  are  invariably  drawn  to  him.    He  is 
a  national  figure,  and  the  crowds  that  flock  around 
the  car  in  which  he  is  riding,  as  we  pause  in  the 
towns  through  which  we  pass,  are  not  paying  their 
homage  merely  to  a  successful  car-builder  or  busi- 
ness man,  but  to  a  beneficent  human  force,  a  great 
practical  idealist  whose  good-will  and  spirit  of  uni- 
versal helpfulness  they  have  all  felt.     He  has  not 
only  brought  pleasure  and  profit  into  their  lives, 
but  has  illustrated  and  written  large  upon  the  pages 
of  current  history  a  new  ideal  of  the  business  man — 
that  of  a  man  whose  devotion  to  the  public  good 
has  been  a  ruling  passion,  and  whose  wealth  has 
inevitably  flowed  from  the  depth  of  his  humani- 
tarianism.    He  has  taken  the  people  into  partner- 
ship with  him,  and  has  eagerly  shared  with  them 
the  benefits  that  are  the  fruit  of  his  great  enter- 
prise— a  liberator,  an  emancipator,  through  chan- 
nels   that    are    so    often    used    to    enslave    or 

destroy. 

In  one  respect,  essentially  the  same  thing  may 
be  said  of  Mr.  Edison:  his  first  and  leading  thought 
has  been.  What  can  I  do  to  make  life  easier  and 
more  enjoyable  to  my  fellow-men?    He  is  a  great 

124 


A  STRENUOUS  HOLIDAY 

chemist,  a  trenchant  and  original  thinker  on  all  the 
great  questions  of  life,  though  he  has  delved  but 
little  into  the  world  of  art  and  literature — a  prac- 
tical scientist,  plus  a  meditative  philosopher  of  pro- 
found insight.  And  his  humor  is  delicious.  We 
delighted  in  his  wise  and  witty  sayings.  A  good 
camper-out,  he  turns  vagabond  very  easily,  can  go 
with  hair  disheveled  and  clothes  unbrushed  as  long 
as  the  best  of  us,  and  can  rough  it  week  in  and  week 
out  and  wear  that  benevolent  smile.  He  eats  so  little 
that  I  think  he  was  not  tempted  by  the  chicken- 
roosts  or  turkey-flocks  along  the  way,  nor  by  the 
cornfields  and  apple-orchards,  as  some  of  us  were, 
but  he  is  second  to  none  in  his  love  for  the  open 
and  for  wild  nature. 

Mr.  Firestone  belongs  to  an  entirely  different 
type — the  clean,  clear-headed,  conscientious  busi- 
ness type;  always  on  his  job,  always  ready  for  what- 
ever comes;  in  no  sense  an  outdoor  man;  always 
at  the  service  of  those  around  him;  a  man  gen- 
erous, kindly,  appreciative,  devoted  to  his  family 
and  his  friends;  sound  in  his  ideas — a  manu- 
facturer who  has  faithfully  and  honestly  served 
his  countrymen. 

It  is  after  he  gets  home  that  a  meditative  man 
really  makes  such  a  trip.  All  the  unpleasant  fea- 
tures are  strained  out  or  transformed.  In  retro- 
pect  it  is  all  enjoyable,  even  the  discomforts.  I  am 
aware  that  I  was  often  irritable  and  ungracious,  but 

125 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

my  companions  were  tolerant,  and  gave  little  heed 
to  the  flitting  moods  of  an  octogenarian.  Now,  at 
this  distance,  and  sitting  beside  my  open  fire  at 
Slabsides,  I  look  upon  the  whole  trip  with  unmixed 
pleasure. 


IX 

UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

1.   A  SUN-BLESSED  LAND 

The  two  sides  of  our  great  sprawling  continent,  the 
East  and  West,  differ  from  each  other  almost  as 
much  as  day  differs  from  night.  On  the  coast  of 
southern  California  the  dominant  impression  made 
upon  one  is  of  a  world  made  up  of  three  elements — 
sun,  sea,  and  sky.  The  Pacific  stretches  away  to 
the  horizon  like  a  vast,  shining,  gently  undulating 
floor.  Its  waves  are  longer  and  come  in  more  lan- 
guidly than  they  do  upon  the  Atlantic  coast.  It 
justifies  its  name.  The  passion  and  fury  of  the 
Eastern  seas  I  got  no  hint  of,  even  in  winter.  Its 
rocks,  all  that  I  saw  of  them,  are  soft  and  friable. 
The  languid  waves  rapidly  wear  them  down.  They 
are  non-strenuous  rocks,  lifted  up  out  of  a  non- 
strenuous  sea.  The  mountains  that  tower  four  or 
five  thousand  feet  along  the  coast  are  of  the  same 
character.  They  are  young,  and  while  they  carry 
their  heads  very  high,  they  are  soft  and  easily  dis 
integrated  compared  with  the  granite  of  our  coast. 
As  a  rule,  young  mountains  always  wear  the  look 
of  age,  from  their  deep  lines  and  jagged  and  angular 
character,  while  the  really  old  mountains  wear  the 
look  of  youth  from  their  comparative  smoothness, 

127 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

their  unwrinkled  appearance,  their  long,  flowing 
lines.     Time  has  taken  the  conceit  all  out  of  them. 

The  annual  rainfall  in  the  Far  West  is  only  about 
one  third  of  what  it  is  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
continent.  And  the  soil  is  curiously  adapted  to  the 
climate.  Trees  flourish  and  crops  are  grown  there 
under  arid  conditions  that  would  kill  every  green 
thing  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  The  soil  is  clay 
tempered  with  a  little  sand,  probably  less  than  ten 
per  cent  of  it  by  weight  is  sand.  I  washed  the  clay 
out  of  a  large  lump  of  it  and  found  the  sand  a 
curious  heterogeneous  mixture  of  small  and  large, 
light  and  dark  grains  of  all  possible  forms.  The 
soil  does  not  bake  as  do  our  clay  soils,  and  keeps 
moist  when  ours  would  almost  defy  the  plough. 
Under  cultivation  it  works  up  into  a  good  tillable 
condition.  Its  capacity  to  retain  moisture  is  re- 
markable, as  if  it  were  made  for  a  scant  rainfall. 
As  a  crop-producing  soil,  it  has  virtues  which  I  am 
at  a  loss  to  account  for.  Root  vegetables  grown 
here  have  a  sweetness,  and  above  all,  a  tenderness, 
of  which  we  know  nothing  in  the  East.  Much  sun- 
shine in  our  climate  makes  root  vegetables  fibrous 
and  tough. 

I  more  than  half  believe  that  the  wonderful 
sweetness  of  the  bird  songs  here,  such  as  that  of 
the  meadowlark,  is  more  or  less  a  matter  of  climate; 
the  quality  of  the  sunshine  seems  to  have  affected 
their  vocal  cords.      The  clear,  piercing,  shaft-Hke 

128 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

note  of  our  meadowlark  contrasts  with  that  of  the 
Pacific  variety  as  our  hard,  brilliant  blue  skies  con- 
trast with  the  softer  and  tenderer  skies  of  this  sun- 
blessed  land. 

II.      LAWN   BIRDS 

To  have  a  smooth  grassy  lawn  about  your  house 
on  the  Pacific  coast  is  to  have  spread  out  before 
you  at  nearly  all  hours  of  the  day  a  pretty  spectacle 
of  wild-bird  life.  Warblers,  sparrows,  thrushes, 
titlarks,  and  plovers  flutter  across  it  as  thick  as 
autumn  leaves — not  so  highly  colored,  yet  showing 
a  pleasing  variety  of  tints,  while  the  black  phoebe 
flits  about  your  porch  and  arbor  vines. 

Audubon's  warbler  is  the  most  numerous,  prob- 
ably ten  to  one  of  any  other  variety  of  birds.  Then 
the  white-crowned  sparrows,  Gambel's  sparrow,  the 
tree  sparrow,  and  one  or  two  other  sparrows  of 
which  I  am  not  sure  are  next  in  number. 

Two  species  of  birds  from  the  Far  North  are 
usually  represented  by  a  solitary  specimen  of  each, 
namely,  the  Alaska  hermit  thrush  and  the  American 
pipit,  or  titlark.  The  thrush  is  silent,  but  has  its 
usual  trim,  alert  look.  The  pipit  is  the  only  walker 
in  the  group.  It  walks  about  like  our  oven-bird 
with  the  same  pretty  movement  of  the  head  and  a 
teetering  motion  of  the  hind  part  of  the  body. 

While  in  Alaska,  in  July,  1899,  with  the  Harri- 
man  Expedition,  I  found  the  nest  of  the  pipit  far 

129 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

up  on  the  side  of  a  steep  mountain.  It  was  tucked 
in  under  a  mossy  tuft  and  commanded  a  view  of 
sea  and  mountain  such  as  Alaska  alone  can  afford. 

But  the  most  conspicuous  and  interesting  of  all 
these  lawn  birds  are  the  ring-necked  plovers,  or 
killdeers.  Think  of  having  a  half-dozen  or  more  of 
those  wild,  shapely  creatures,  reminiscent  of  the 
shore  and  of  the  spirit  of  the  tender,  glancing  April 
days,  running  over  your  lawn  but  a  few  yards  from 
you !  Their  dovelike  heads,  their  long,  slender  legs, 
that  curious,  mechanical  jerking  up-and-down 
movement  of  their  bodies,  their  shrill,  disconsolate 
cries  as  they  take  flight,  their  beautiful  and  power- 
ful wings  and  tail,  and  their  mastery  of  the  air — 
all  arrest  your  attention  or  challenge  your  admira- 
tion. They  bring  the  distant  and  the  furtive  to 
your  very  door.  All  climes  and  lands  wait  upon 
their  wings.     They  fly  around  the  world. 

The  plovers  are  the  favored  among  birds. 
Beauty,  speed,  and  immunity  from  danger  from 
birds  of  prey  are  theirs.  Ethereal  and  aerial  crea- 
tures !  Is  that  the  cry  of  the  sea  in  the  bird's  voice? 
Is  that  the  motion  of  the  waves  in  its  body?  Is 
that  the  restlessness  of  the  surf  in  its  behavior? 

However  high  and  far  it  may  fly,  it  has  to  come 
back  to  earth  as  we  all  do.  It  comes  to  our  lawn  to 
feed  upon  earthworms.  The  other  birds  are  all  busy 
picking  up  some  minute  fly  or  insect  that  harbors 
in  the  grass,  but  the  plover  is  here  for  game  that 

130 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

harbors  in  the  turf.  His  methods  are  hke  those  of 
the  robin  searching  for  grubs  or  angle-worms.  He 
scrutinizes  the  turf  very  carefully  as  he  runs  about 
over  it,  making  frequent  drives  into  it  with  his  bill, 
but  only  now  and  then  seizing  the  prey  of  which  he 
is  in  search.  When  he  does  so,  he  shows  the  same 
judgment  which  the  robin  does  under  like  condi- 
tions. He  pulls  slowly  and  evenly,  so  as  to  make 
sure  of  the  whole  worm,  or  to  compel  it  to  let  go  its 
hold  upon  the  soil  without  breaking.  All  birds  are 
wise  about  their  food-supplies. 

On  the  beach  the  wild  life  that  I  see  is  all  on 
wings.  There  are  the  tranquil,  effortless  gliding 
herring  gulls,  snow-white  beneath  and  pearl-gray 
above,  displaying  an  affluence  of  wing-power  restful 
to  look  upon — airplanes  that  put  forth  their  powers 
so  subtly  and  so  silently  as  to  elude  both  eye  and 
ear.  At  low  tide  I  see  large  groups  of  their  white 
and  gray-blue  forms  seated  upon  the  dark,  moss- 
covered  rocks.  Fresh  water  is  at  a  premium  on 
this  coast,  and  the  thirsty  gulls  avail  themselves 
of  the  makeshift  of  the  drain-pipes  from  the  town, 
which  discharge  on  the  beach. 

There  are  the  clumsy-looking  but  powerful- 
winged  birds,  the  brown  pelicans,  usually  in  a  line 
of  five  or  six,  skimming  low  over  the  waves,  shaping 
their  course  to  the  *'hilly  sea,"  often  gliding  on  set 
wings  for  a  long  distance,  rising  and  falling  to  clear 
the  water — coasting,  at  it  were,  on  a  horizontal  sur- 

131 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

face,  and  only  at  intervals  beating  the  air  for  more 
power.  They  are  heavy,  awkward-looking  birds 
with  wings  and  forms  that  suggest  none  of  the 
grace  and  beauty  of  the  usual  shore  birds.  They 
do  not  seem  to  be  formed  to  cleave  the  air,  or  to 
part  the  water,  but  they  do  both  very  successfully. 
When  the  pelican  dives  for  his  prey,  he  is  for  the 
moment  transformed  into  a  thunderbolt.  He  comes 
down  like  an  arrow  of  Jove,  and  smites  and  parts 
the  water  in  surperb  style.  When  he  recovers 
himself,  he  is  the  same  stolid,  awkward-looking 
creature  as  before. 

A  bird  evidently  not  far  removed  from  its  rep- 
tilian ancestors — a  bird  that  is  at  home  under  the 
water  and  hunts  its  prey  there  on  the  wing — is  the 
black  cormorant.  There  is  a  colony  of  several  hun- 
dred of  them  on  the  face  of  a  sea-cliff  a  short 
distance  above  me. 

I  see,  at  nearly  all  hours  of  the  day,  the  black 
lines  they  make  above  the  foaming  breakers  as 
they  go  and  come  on  their  foraging  expeditions. 
In  diving,  they  disappear  under  the  water  like 
the  loon,  and  penetrate  to  as  great  depths.  One 
does  not  crave  an  intimate  acquaintance  with 
them,  but  they  are  interesting  as  a  part  of  the 
multitudinous  life  of  the  shore. 

III.      SILKEN  CHAMBERS 

The  trap-door  spider  has  furnished  me  with 

132 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

one  of  the  most  interesting  bits  of  natural  his- 
tory I  have  found  on  the  coast.  An  obliging 
sojourner  near  me  from  one  of  the  Eastern  States 
had  discovered  a  large  plot  of  uncultivated  ground 
above  the  beach  that  abounded  in  the  hidden  bur- 
rows of  these  curious  animals.  One  afternoon  he 
volunteered  to  conduct  me  to  the  place. 

The  ground  was  scantily  covered  with  low  bushy 
and  weedy  growths.  My  guide  warned  me  that 
the  quarry  we  sought  was  hard  to  find.  It  in- 
deed, found  it  so.  It  not  only  required  an  "eye 
as  practiced  as  a  blind  man's  touch,"  it  required 
an  eye  practiced  in  this  particular  kind  of  detec- 
tive work.  My  new  friend  conducted  me  down 
into  the  plot  of  ground  and,  stopping  on  the  edge 
of  it,  said,  *'There  is  a  nest  within  two  feet  of  me." 
I  fell  to  scrutinizing  the  ground  as  closely  as  I 
knew  how,  fairly  bearing  on  with  my  eyes;  I  went 
over  the  soil  inch  by  inch  with  my  eyes,  but  to 
no  purpose.  There  was  no  mark  on  the  gray  and 
brown  earth  at  my  feet  that  suggested  a  trap-door, 
or  any  other  device.  I  stooped  low,  but  without 
avail.  Then  my  guide  stooped,  and  with  a  long 
needle  pried  up  a  semi-circular  or  almost  circular 
bit  of  the  gray  soil  nearly  the  size  of  a  silver  quar- 
ter of  a  dollar,  which  hinged  on  the  straight 
side  of  it,  and  behold — the  entrance  to  the  spider's 
castle !  I  was  not  prepared  for  any  thing  so  novel 
and  artistic — a  long  silken  chamber,  about  three 

133 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

quarters  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  concealed  by  a 
silken  trap-door,  an  inch  in  its  greatest  diameter. 
The  under  side  of  the  door,  a  dull  white,  the  col- 
or of  old  ivory,  is  slightly  convex,  and  its  top 
is  a  brownish  gray  to  harmonize  with  its  sur- 
roundings, and  slightly  concave.  Its  edges  are  bev- 
eled so  that  it  fits  into  the  flaring  or  beveled  end 
of  the  chamber  with  the  utmost  nicety.  No  joiner 
could  have  done  it  better.  A  faint  semicircular 
raised  line  of  clay  as  fine  as  a  hair  gave  the  only 
clue.  The  whole  ejffect,  when  the  door  was  held 
open,  was  of  a  pleasing  secret  suddenly  revealed. 

Then  we  walked  about  the  place,  and,  knowing 
exactly  what  to  look  for,  I  gave  my  eyes  another 
chance,  but  they  were  slow  to  profit  by  it.  My 
guide  detected  one  after  another,  and  when  I 
failed,  he  would  point  them  out  to  me.  But  pres- 
ently I  caught  on,  as  they  say,  and  began  to  find 
them  unaided. 

We  often  found  the  lord  of  the  manor  on  duty  as 
doorkeeper,  and  in  no  mood  to  see  strangers.  He 
held  his  door  down  by  inserting  his  fangs  in  two  fine 
holes  near  the  edge  and  bracing  himself,  or,  rather, 
herself  (as,  of  course,  it  is  the  female),  offered  a  de- 
gree of  resistance  surprising  in  an  insect.  If  one 
persists  with  a  needle,  there  is  often  danger  of 
breaking  the  door.  But  when  one  has  made  a  crack 
wide  enough  to  allow  one  to  see  the  spider,  she  lets 
go  her  hold  and  rushes  farther  down  in  her  burrow. 

134 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

Occasionafly  we  found  one  about  half  the  usual 
size,  indicating  a  young  spider,  but  no  other  sizes. 
My  guide  said  they  only  emerge  from  their  tunnel 
at  night,  and  proved  it  by  an  ingenious  mechanical 
device  made  of  straws  attached  to  the  door.  When 
the  door  was  opened,  the  straws  lifted  up,  but  did 
not  fall  down  when  it  was  closed.  Whenever  he 
found  the  straw  still  up  in  the  morning  he  knew 
the  door  had  been  opened  in  the  night. 

As  they  are  nocturnal  in  habits,  they  doubtless 
prey  upon  other  insects,  such  as  sow-bugs  «ind 
crickets,  which  the  night  brings  forth.  Two  bright 
specks  upon  the  top  of  the  head  appear  to  be  eyes, 
but  they  are  so  small  they  probably  only  serve  to 
enable  them  to  tell  night  from  day.  I  think  these 
spiders  are  mainly  guided  by  a  marvelously  acute 
tactile  sense.  They  probably  feel  the  slightest 
vibration  in  the  earth  or  air,  unless  they  have  a 
sixth  sense  of  which  we  know  nothing. 

All  their  work,  the  building  and  repairing  of 
their  nests,  as  well  as  all  their  hunting,  is  done  by 
night.     This  habit,  in  connection  with  their  ex- 
treme shyness,  makes  the  task  of  getting  at  their  \ 
life-histories  a  difficult  one.     The  inside  of  the  < 
burrow  seems  coated  with  a  finer  and  harder  sub-  [• 
stance  than  the  soil  in  which  they  are  dug.     It  is 
made  on  the  spot,  the  spider  mixing  some  secretion 
of  her  own  with  the  clay,  and  working  it  up  into 
a  finer  product. 

135 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

The  trap-door  sooner  or  later  wears  out  at  the 
hinge,  and  is  then  discarded  and  a  new  door  manu- 
factured. We  saw  many  nests  with  the  old  door 
lying  near  the  entrance.  The  door  is  made  of 
several  layers  of  silk  and  clay,  and  is  a  substantial 
affair. 

The  spider  families  all  have  the  gift  of  genius. 
Of  what  ingenious  devices  and  arts  are  they  mas- 
ters! How  wide  their  range!  They  spin,  they 
delve,  they  jump,  they  fly.  They  are  the  original 
spinners.  They  have  probably  been  on  their  job 
since  carboniferous  times,  many  millions  of  years 
before  man  took  up  the  art.  And  they  can  spin  a 
thread  so  fine  that  science  makes  the  astonishing 
statement  that  it  would  take  four  millions  of  them 
to  make  a  thread  the  caliber  of  one  of  the  hairs  of 
our  head — a  degree  of  delicacy  to  which  man  can 
never  hope  to  attain. 

Trap-doors  usually  mean  surprises  and  strata- 
gems, secrets  and  betrayals,  and  this  species  of  the 
arachnids  is  proficient  in  all  these  things. 

The  adobe  soil  on  the  Pacific  coast  is  as  well  fitted 
to  the  purposes  of  this  spider  as  if  it  had  been  made 
for  her  special  use.  But,  as  in  all  such  cases,  the 
soil  was  not  made  for  her,  but  she  is  adapted  to  it. 
It  is  radically  unlike  any  soil  on  the  Atlantic  coast 
— the  soil  for  canons  and  the  rectangular  water- 
courses, and  for  the  trap-door  spider.  It  is  a  tough, 
fine-grained  homogeneous  soil,  and  when  dry  does 

136 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

not  crumble  or  disintegrate;  the  cohesion  of  parti- 
cles is  such  that  sun-dried  brick  are  easily  made 
from  it. 

This  spider  is  found  in  New  Mexico,  Arizona, 
California,  and  Jamaica.  It  belongs  to  the  family 
of  Mygalidae.  It  resembles  in  appearance  the  taran- 
tula of  Europe,  described  by  Fabre,  and  has  many 
of  the  same  habits;  but  its  habitation  is  a  much 
more  ingenious  and  artistic  piece  of  workmanship 
than  that  of  its  European  relative.  The  tarantula 
has  no  door  to  her  burrow,  but  instead  she  builds 
about  the  entrance  a  kind  of  breastwork  an  inch 
high  and  nearly  two  inches  in  diameter,  and  from 
this  fortress  sallies  out  upon  her  prey.  She  sinks 
a  deeper  shaft  than  does  our  spider,  but  excavates 
it  in  the  same  way  with  similar  tools,  her  fangs, 
and  lines  it  with  silk  from  her  own  body. 

Our  spider  is  an  artist,  evidently  the  master 
builder  and  architect  of  her  kind.  Considering  her 
soft  and  pussy-like  appearance — no  visible  drills  for 
such  rough  work — one  wonders  how  she  excavates 
a  burrow  six  inches  or  more  deep  in  this  hard 
adobe  soil  of  the  Pacific  coast,  and  how  she  removes 
the  dirt  after  she  has  loosened  it.  But  she  has 
been  surprised  at  her  work;  her  tools  are  her  two 
fangs,  the  same  weapons  with  which  she  seizes  and 
dispatches  her  prey,  and  the  rake  or  the  chelicerce. 
To  use  these  delicate  instruments  in  such  coarse 
work,  says  Fabre,  seems  as  * 'illogical  as  it  would 

137 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

to  dig  a  pit  with  a  surgeon's  scalpel."  And  she 
carries  the  soil  out  in  her  mandibles,  a  minute  pel- 
let at  a  time,  and  drops  it  here  and  there  at  some 
distance  from  her  nest.  Her  dooryard  is  never 
littered  with  it.  It  takes  her  one  hour  to  dig  a 
hole  the  size  of  half  an  English  walnut,  and  to 
remove  the  earth. 

One  afternoon  I  cut  off  the  doors  from  two  nests 
and  left  them  turned  over,  a  few  inches  away. 
The  next  morning  I  found  that  the  occupants  of 
the  nests,  under  cover  of  the  darkness,  had  each 
started  the  construction  of  a  new  door,  and  had 
it  about  half  finished.  It  seemed  as  if  the  soil 
on  the  hinge  side  had  begun  to  grow,  and  had  put 
out  a  semicircular  bit  of  its  surface  toward  the 
opposite  side  of  the  orifice,  each  new  door  copying 
exactly  the  color  of  the  ground  that  surrounded  it, 
one  gray  from  dead  vegetable  matter,  the  other  a 
light  brick-red.  I  read  somewhere  of  an  experi- 
menter who  found  a  nest  on  a  mossy  bit  of  ground 
protectively  colored  in  this  way.  He  removed  the 
lid  and  made  the  soil  bare  about.  The  spider  made 
a  new  lid  and  covered  it  with  moss  like  the  old 
one,  and  her  art  had  the  opposite  effect  to  what  it 
had  in  the  first  case.  This  is  typical  of  the  work- 
ing of  the  insect  mind.  It  seems  to  know  every- 
thing, and  yet  to  know  nothing,  as  we  use  the  term 
"know." 

On  the  second  morning,  one  of  the  doors  had  at- 

138 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

tained  its  normal  size,  but  not  yet  its  normal  thick- 
ness and  strength.  It  was  much  more  artfully  con- 
cealed than  the  old  one  had  been.  The  builder 
had  so  completely  covered  it  with  small  dry  twigs 
about  the  size  of  an  ordinary  pin,  and  had  so  woven 
these  into  it,  standing  a  few  of  them  on  end,  that 
my  eye  was  baffled.  I  knew  to  an  inch  where  to 
look  for  the  door,  and  yet  it  seemed  to  have  van- 
ished. By  feeling  the  ground  over  with  a  small 
stick  I  found  a  yielding  place  which  proved  to  be 
the  new  unfinished  door.  Day  after  day  the  door 
grew  heavier  and  stronger.  The  builder  worked 
at  it  on  the  under  side,  adding  new  layers  of  silk. 
There  is  always  a  layer  of  the  soil  worked  into  the 
door  to  give  it  weight  and  strength. 

Spiders,  like  reptiles,  can  go  months  without 
food.  The  young,  according  to  Fabre,  go  seven 
months  without  eating.  They  do  not  grow,  but 
they  are  very  active;  they  expend  energy  without 
any  apparent  means  of  keeping  up  the  supply. 
How  do  they  do  it?  They  absorb  it  directly  from 
the  sun,  Fabre  thinks,  which  means  that  here  is 
an  animal  between  which  and  the  organic  world 
the  vegetable  chlorophyl  plays  no  part,  but  which 
can  take  at  first-hand,  from  the  sun,  the  energy  of 
life.  If  this  is  true,  and  it  seems  to  be  so,  it  is 
most  extraordinary. 

In  view  of  the  sex  of  the  extraordinary  spider  I 
have  been  considering,  it  is  interesting  to  remember 

139 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

that  one  difference  between  the  insect  world  and 
the  world  of  animal  life  to  which  we  belong,  which 
Maeterlinck  has  forgotten  to  point  out,  is  this; 

In  the  vertebrate  world,  the  male  rules;  the  fe- 
male plays  a  secondary  part.  In  the  insect  world 
the  reverse  is  true.  Here  the  female  is  supreme  and 
often  eats  up  the  male  after  she  has  been  fertilized 
by  him.  Motherhood  is  the  primary  fact,  father- 
hood the  secondary.  It  is  the  female  mosquito 
that  torments  the  world.  It  is  the  female  spider 
that  spins  the  web  and  traps  the  flies.  Size,  craft, 
and  power  go  with  the  female.  The  female  spider 
eats  up  the  male  after  he  has  served  her  purpose; 
her  caresses  mean  death.  The  female  scorpion  de- 
vours the  male  in  the  same  way.  Among  our  wild 
bees  it  is  the  queen  alone  that  survives  the  winter 
and  carries  on  the  race.  The  big  noisy  blow-flies  on 
the  window-pane  are  females.  With  the  honey 
bees  the  males  are  big  and  loud,  but  are  without 
any  authority,  and  are  almost  as  literally  destroyed 
by  the  female  as  is  the  male  spider.  The  queen  bee 
does  not  eat  her  mate,  but  she  disembowels  him. 
The  work  of  the  hive  is  done  by  the  neuters.  In  the 
vertebrate  world  it  is  chiefly  among  birds  of  prey 
that  the  female  is  the  larger  and  bolder;  the  care  of 
the  young  devolves  largely  upon  her.  Yes,  there  is 
another  exception:  Among  the  fishes,  the  females 
are,  as  a  rule,  larger  than  the  males;  the  immense 
number  of  eggs  which  they  carry  brings  this  about, 

140 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

There  are  always  exceptions  to  this  dominance 
of  the  female  in  the  insect  world.  We  cannot  cor- 
ner Nature  and  keep  her  cornered.  She  would  not 
be  Nature  if  we  could.  With  the  fireflies,  it  is  the 
male  that  dominates;  the  female  is  a  little  soft, 
wingless  worm  on  the  ground,  always  in  the  larval 
state. 

In  the  plant  world,  also,  the  male  as  a  rule  is  dom- 
inant. Behold  the  showy  catkins  of  the  chestnuts, 
the  butternuts,  the  hazelnuts,  the  willows,  and 
other  trees.  The  stamens  of  most  flowers  are 
numerous  and  conspicuous.  Our  Indian  corn  car- 
ries its  panicle  of  pollen  high  above  the  silken  tresses 
which  mother  the  future  ear. 

One  day  I  dug  up  a  nest  which  was  occupied  by 
a  spider  with  her  brood  of  young  ones.  I  took  up 
a  large  block  of  earth  weighing  ten  pounds  or  more, 
and  sank  it  in  a  box  of  earth  of  its  own  kind.  I 
kept  it  in  the  house  under  observation  for  a  week, 
hoping  that  at  some  hour  of  day  or  night  the  spider 
would  come  out.  But  she  made  no  sign.  My  in- 
genious friend  arranged  the  same  mechanical  con- 
trivance over  the  door  which  he  had  used  success- 
fully before.  But  the  latch  was  never  lifted. 
Madam  Spider  sulked  or  bemoaned  her  fate  at 
the  bottom  of  her  den.  At  the  end  of  a  week  I 
broke  open  the  nest  and  found  her  alone.  She  had 
evidently  devoured  all  her  little  ones. 

I  kept  two  nests  with  a  spider  in  each  in  the 

141 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

house  for  a  week,  and  in  neither  case  did  the  occu< 
pant  ever  leave  its  nest. 

Apparently  the  young  spiders  begin  to  dig  nests 
of  their  own  when  they  are  about  half -grown.  As 
to  where  they  stay,  or  how  they  live  up  to  that 
time,  I  have  no  clue.  The  young  we  found  in 
several  nests  were  very  small,  not  more  than  an 
eighth  of  an  inch  long.  Of  the  size  and  appear- 
ance of  the  male  spider,  and  where  he  keeps  him- 
self, I  could  get  no  clue. 

One  morning  I  went  with  my  guide  down  to 
the  spider  territory,  and  saw  him  try  to  entice  or 
force  a  spider  out  of  her  den.  The  morning  pre- 
vious he  had  beguiled  several  of  them  to  come  up 
to  the  opening  by  thrusting  a  straw  down  the  bur- 
row and  teasing  them  with  it  till  in  self-defense 
they  seized  it  with  their  fangs  and  hung  on  to  it 
till  he  drew  them  to  the  surface.  But  this  morning 
the  trick  would  not  work.  Not  one  spider  would 
keep  her  hold.  But  with  a  piece  of  wire  bent  at 
the  end  in  the  shape  of  a  hook,  he  finally  lifted  one 
out  upon  the  ground.  How  bright  and  clean  and 
untouched  she  looked!  Her  limbs  and  a  part  of 
the  thorax  were  as  black  as  jet  and  shone  as  if  they 
had  just  been  polished.  No  lady  in  her  parlor 
could  have  been  freer  from  any  touch  of  soil  or 
earth-stain  than  was  she.  On  the  ground,  in 
the  strong  sunlight,  she  seemed  to  be  lost.  We 
turned  her  around  and  tried  to  induce  her  to  enter 

142 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

the  nest  again;  but  over  and  over  she  ran  across 
the  open  door  without  heeding  it.  In  the  novel 
situation  in  which  she  suddenly  found  herself,  all 
her  wits  deserted  her,  and  not  till  I  took  her  between 
my  thumb  and  finger  and  thrust  her  abdomen  into 
the  hole,  did  she  come  to  herself.  The  touch  of 
that  silk-lined  tube  caused  the  proper  reaction,  and 
she  backed  quickly  into  it  and  disappeared. 

Just  what  natural  enemy  the  trap-door  spider 
has  I  do  not  know.  I  never  saw  a  nest  that  had 
been  broken  into  or  in  any  way  disturbed,  except 
those  which  we  had  disturbed  in  our  observations. 

IV.      THE  DESERT  NOTE 

I  OFTEN  wonder  what  mood  of  Nature  this  world 
of  cacti  which  we  run  against  in  the  great  South- 
west expresses.  Certainly  something  savage  and 
merciless.  To  stab  and  stab  again  suits  her  humor. 
How  well  she  tempers  her  daggers  and  bayonets! 
How  hard  and  smooth  and  sharp  they  are !  How 
they  contrast  with  the  thick,  succulent  stalks  and 
leaves  which  bear  them !  It  is  a  desert  mood;  heat 
and  drought  appear  to  be  the  exciting  causes.  The 
scarcity  of  water  seems  to  stimulate  Nature  to 
store  up  water  in  vegetable  tissues,  just  as  it  stimu- 
lates men  to  build  great  dams  and  reservoirs. 
These  giant  cacti  are  reservoirs  of  water.  But  why 
spines  and  prickles  and  cruel  bayonets?  They  cer- 
tainly cannot  be  for  protection  or  defense;  the 

143 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

grass  and  other  vegetation  upon  which  the  graz- 
ing animals  feed  are  not  armed  with  spines. 

If  the  cacti  were  created  that  grazing  animals  in 
the  desert  might  have  something  to  feed  upon,  as 
our  fathers'  way  of  looking  at  things  might  lead  us 
to  believe,  why  was  that  benevolent  plan  frustrated 
by  the  armor  of  needles  and  spines? 

Nature  reaches  her  hungry  and  thirsty  crea- 
tures this  broad,  mittened  hand  like  a  cruel  joke. 
It  smites  like  a  serpent  and  stings  like  a  scorpion. 
The  strange,  many-colored,  fascinating  desert! 
Beware!    Agonies  are  one  of  her  garments. 

All  we  can  say  about  it  is  that  Nature  has  her 
prickly  side  which  drought  and  heat  aggravate.  In 
the  North  our  thistles  and  thorns  and  spines  are 
a  milder  expression  of  this  mood.  The  spines  on 
the  blackberry-bush  tend  against  its  propagation 
for  the  same  reason.  Among  our  wild  gooseberries, 
there  are  smooth  and  prickly  varieties,  and  one  suc- 
ceeds about  as  well  as  the  other.  Apple-  and  pear- 
trees  in  rough  or  barren  places  that  have  a  severe 
struggle  for  life,  often  develop  sharp,  thorny 
"branches.  It  is  a  struggle  of  some  kind  which 
begets  something  like  ill-temper  in  vegetation — ■ 
heat  and  drought  in  the  desert,  and  browsing  ani-' 
mals  and  poor  soil  in  the  temperate  zones.  The 
devil's  club  in  Alaska  is  one  mass  of  spines;  why, 
I  know  not.  It  must  just  be  original  sin.  Our 
raspberries  have  prickles  on  their  stalks,  but  the 

144 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

large,  purple-flowering  variety  is  smooth-stemmed. 
Mr.  John  C.  Van  Dyke  in  his  work  on  the  desert 
expresses  the  behef  that  thorns  and  spines  are 
given  to  the  desert  plants  for  protection;  and 
that  if  no  animal  were  there  that  would  eat  them, 
they  would  not  have  tjiese  defenses.  But  I  believe 
if  there  had  never  been  a  browsing  animal  in  the 
desert  the  cacti  would  have  had  their  thorns  just 
the  same. 

Nature  certainly  arms  her  animal  forms  against 
one  another.  We  know  the  quills  of  the  porcupine 
are  for  defense,  and  that  the  skunk  carries  a  weapon 
that  its  enemies  dread,  but  I  do  not  believe  that 
any  plant  form  is  armed  against  any  creature  whose 
proper  food  it  might  become.  Cacti  carry  formi- 
dable weapons  in  the  shape  of  spines  and  thorns, 
but  the  desert  conditions  where  they  are  found, 
heat  and  aridity,  are  no  doubt  their  primary  cause. 
The  conditions  are  fierce  and  the  living  forms 
are  fierce. 

We  cannot  be  dogmatic  about  Nature.  From 
our  point  of  view  she  often  seems  partial  and  in- 
consistent. But  I  would  just  as  soon  think  that 
Nature  made  the  adobe  soil  in  the  arid  regions 
that  the  human  dwellers  there  might  have  material 
at  hand  with  which  to  construct  a  shelter,  as  that 
she  gives  spines  and  daggers  to  any  of  the  vegetable 
forms  to  secure  their  safety.  One  may  confute 
Mr.  Van  Dyke  out  of  his  own  mouth.    He  says : 

145 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

Remove  the  danger  which  threatened  the  extinction  of 
a  family,  and  immediately  Nature  removes  the  defensive 
armor.  On  the  desert,  for  instance,  the  yucca  has  a 
thorn  like  a  point  of  steel.  Follow  it  from  the  desert 
to  the  high  tropical  table-lands  of  Mexico  where  there  is 
|plenty  of  soil  and  moisture,  plenty  of  chance  for  yuccas 
to  thrive,  and  you  will  find  it  turned  into  a  tree  and  the 
thorn  merely  a  dull  blade-ending.  Follow  the  sahuaro 
and  the  pitahaya  into  the  tropics  again,  and  with  their 
cousin,  the  organ  cactus,  you  will  find  them  growing  a 
soft  thorn  that  would  hardly  penetrate  clothing. 

But  are  they  not  just  as  much  exposed  to  browsing 
animals  in  the  high  table-lands  as  in  the  desert, 
if  not  more  so? 

Mr.  Van  Dyke  asserts  that  Nature  is  more  solic- 
itous about  the  species  than  about  the  individual. 
She  is  no  more  solicitous  about  the  one  than  the 
other.  The  same  conditions  apply  to  all.  But 
the  species  are  numerous;  a  dozen  units  may  be 
devoured  while  a  thousand  remain.  A  general  will 
sacrifice  many  soldiers  to  save  his  army,  he  will 
sacrifice  one  man  to  save  ten,  but  Nature's  ways 
are  entirely  different.  Both  contending  armies  are 
hers,  and  she  is  equally  solicitous  about  both.  She 
wants  the  cacti  to  survive,  and  she  wants  the 
desert  animals  to  survive,  and  she  favors  both 
equally.  All  she  asks  of  them  is  that  they  breed 
and  multiply  endlessly.  Notwithstanding,  accord- 
ing to  Van  Dyke,  Nature  has  taken  such  pains  to 
protect  her  desert  plants,  he  yet  confesses  that, 
although  it  seems  almost  incredible,  it  is  neverthe- 

116 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

less  true  that  *'deer  and  desert  cattle  will  eat  the 
clioUa — fruit,  stem,  and  trunk — though  it  bristle 
with  spines  that  will  draw  blood  from  the  human 
hand  at  the  slightest  touch." 

This  question  of  spines  and  thorns  in  vegetation 
is  a  baffling  one  because  Nature's  ways  are  so 
unlike  our  ways.  Darwin  failed  utterly  in  his 
theory  of  the  origin  of  species,  because  he  pro- 
ceeded upon  the  idea  that  Nature  selects  as  man 
selects.     You  cannot  put  Nature  into  a  formula. 

Behold  how  every  branch  and  twig  of  our  red 
thorn  bristles  with  cruel  daggers !  But  if  they  are 
designed  to  keep  away  bird  or  beast  from  eating 
its  fruit,  see  how  that  would  defeat  the  tree's  own 
ends!  If  no  creature  ate  its  little  red  apples  and 
thus  scattered  its  seeds,  the  fruit  would  rot  on  the 
ground  beneath  the  branches,  and  the  tribe  of  red 
thorns  would  not  increase.  And  increase  alone  is 
Nature's  end. 

It  is  safe  to  say,  as  a  general  statement,  that  the 
animal  kingdom  is  full  of  design.  Every  part  and 
organ  of  our  bodies  has  its  purpose  which  serves 
the  well-being  of  the  whole.  I  do  not  recall  any 
character  of  bird  or  beast,  fish  or  insect,  that  does 
not  show  purpose,  but  in  the  plant  world  Nature 
seems  to  allow  herself  more  freedom,  or  does  not 
work  on  so  economical  a  plan.  What  purpose  do 
the  spines  on  the  prickly  ash  serve?  or  on  the 
thistles;.?  or  on  the  blackberry,  raspberry,  goose- 

147 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

berry  bushes?  or  the  rose?  Our  purple-flowering 
raspberry  has  no  prickles,  and  thrives  as  well  as 
any.  The  spines  on  the  blackberry  and  raspberry 
do  not  save  them  from  browsing  cattle,  nor  their 
fruit  from  the  birds.  In  fact,  as  I  have  said,  the 
service  of  the  birds  is  needed  to  sow  their  seeds. 
The  devil's  club  of  Alaska  is  untouchable,  it  is  so 
encased  in  a  spiny  armor;  but  what  purpose  the 
armor  serves  is  a  mystery.  We  know  that  hard 
conditions  of  soil  and  climate  will  bring  thorns 
on  seedling  pear-trees  and  plum-trees,  but  we 
cannot  know  why. 

The  yucca  or  Spanish  bayonet  and  the  century- 
plant,  or  American  aloe  {Agave  americana) ,  are 
thorny  and  spiny;  they  are  also  very  woody  and 
fibrous;  yet  nothing  eats  them  or  could  eat  them. 
They  are  no  more  edible  than  cordwood  or  hemp 
rcpes.  This  fact  alone  settles  the  defense  question 
about  spines. 

V.      SEA-DOGS 

There  is  a  bit  of  live  natural  history  out  here  in 
the  sea  in  front  of  me  that  is  new  and  interesting. 
A  bunch  of  about  a  dozen  hair  seals  have  their 
rendezvous  in  the  unstable  waves  just  beyond  the 
breakers,  and  keep  together  there  week  after  week. 
To  the  naked  eye  they  seem  like  a  group  of  children 
sitting  there  on  a  hidden  bench  of  rock,  undis- 
turbed by  the  waves  that  sweep  over  them.     Their 

148 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

heads  and  shoulders  seem  to  show  above  the 
water,  and  they  appear  to  be  having  a  happy 
time. 

Now  and  then  one  may  be  seen  swimming  about 
or  lifted  up  in  a  wall  of  green-blue  transparent 
I  water,  or  leaping  above  the  wrinkled  surface  in 
ithe  exuberance  of  its  animal  spirits.  I  call  them 
children  of  the  sea,  until  I  hear  their  loud  barking, 
and  then  I  think  of  them  as  dogs  or  hounds  of  the 
sea.  Occasionally  I  hear  their  barking  by  night 
when  it  has  a  half-muflSed,  smothered  sound. 

They  are  warm-blooded,  air-breathing  animals, 
and  there  seems  something  incongruous  in  their 
being  at  home  there  in  the  cold  briny  deep — 
badgers  or  marmots  that  burrow  in  the  waves, 
wolves  or  coyotes  that  hunt  their  prey  in  the  sea. 

Their  progenitors  were  once  land  animals,  but 
Darwinism  does  not  tell  us  what  they  were.  The 
whale  also  was  once  a  land  animal,  but  the  testi- 
mony of  the  rocks  throws  no  light  upon  its  ante- 
cedents. The  origin  of  any  new  species  is  shrouded 
in  the  obscurity  of  whole  geological  periods,  and 
the  short  span  of  human  life,  or  of  the  whole 
human  history,  gives  us  no  adequate  vantage- 
ground  from  which  to  solve  the  problem. 

I  can  easily  believe  that  these  hair  seals  are  close 
akin  to  the  dog.  They  have  five  digits;  they  bolt 
their  food  like  dogs;  their  sense  of  smell  is  said  to 
be  very  acute,  though  how  it  could  serve  them  in 

149 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  sea  does  not  appear.  The  young  are  born 
upon  the  land  and  enter  the  water  very  reluc- 
tantly. 

This  seal  is  easily  tamed.  It  has  the  intelligence 
of  the  dog  and  attaches  itself  to  its  master  as  does 
the  dog.  Its  sense  of  direction  and  locality  is  very 
acute.  This  group  of  seals  in  front  of  me,  day 
after  day,  and  week  after  week,  returns  to  the 
same  spot  in  the  ever-changing  waters,  without 
the  variation  of  a  single  yard,  so  far  as  I  can  see. 
The  locality  is  purely  imaginary.  It  is  a  love  tryst, 
and  it  seems  as  if  some  sixth  sense  must  guide 
them  to  it.  Locality  is  as  unreal  in  the  sea  as  in 
the  sky,  but  these  few  square  yards  of  shifting 
waters  seem  as  real  to  these  seals  as  if  they  were 
a  granite  ledge.  They  keep  massed  there  on  the 
water  at  that  particular  point,  with  their  flippers 
protruding  above  the  surface,  as  if  they  were  as 
free  from  danger  as  so  many  picnickers.  Yet 
something  attracts  them  to  this  particular  place. 
I  know  of  no  other  spot  along  the  coast  for  a 
hundred  miles  or  more  where  the  seals  congregate 
as  they  do  here.  What  is  the  secret  of  it?  Evi- 
dently it  is  a  question  of  security  from  their 
enemies.  At  this  point  the  waves  break  much 
farther  out  than  usual,  which  indicates  a  hidden 
reef  or  bench  of  rocks,  and  comparatively  shallow 
water.  This  would  prevent  their  enemies,  sharks 
and  killer  whales,  from  stealing  up  beneath  them 

150 


UNDER  GENIAL  SKIES 

and  pulling  them  down.  I  do  not  hear  their 
barking  in  the  early  part  of  the  night,  but  long 
before  morning  their  half -muffled  baying  begins. 
Old  fishermen  tell  me  that  they  retire  for  the  night 
to  the  broad  belts  of  kelp  that  lie  a  hundred  yards 
or  more  out  to  sea.  Doubtless  the  beds  of  kelp 
also  afford  them  some  protection  from  their  ene- 
mies. The  fishermen  feel  very  bitter  toward  them 
on  account  of  the  fish  they  devour,  and  kill  them 
whenever  opportunity  offers.  Often  when  I  lie 
half  asleep  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  I 
seem  to  see  these  amphibian  hounds  pursuing  their 
quarry  on  the  unstable  hills  and  mountains  of  the 
sea,  and  giving  tongue  at  short  intervals,  as  did 
the  foxhounds  I  heard  on  the  Catskills  in  my 
youth. 


X 

A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

I.    nature's  wireless 

The  Spirit  of  the  Hive,  which  MaeterUnck  makes 
so  much  of,  seems  to  give  us  the  key  to  the  psychic 
hfe  of  all  the  lower  orders.  What  one  knows,  all 
of  that  kind  seem  to  know  at  the  same  instant. 
It  seems  as  if  they  drew  it  in  with  the  air  they 
breathed.  It  is  something  like  community  of  mind, 
or  unity  of  mind.  Of  course  it  is  not  an  intellectual 
process,  but  an  emotional  process;  not  a  thought, 
as  with  us,  but  an  impulse. 

So  far  as  we  know  there  is  nothing  like  a  council 
or  advisory  board  in  the  hive.  There  are  no  de- 
crees or  orders.  The  swarm  is  a  unit.  The  mem- 
bers act  in  concert  without  direction  or  rule.  If 
anything  happens  to  the  queen,  if  she  is  lost  or 
killed,  every  bee  in  the  hive  seems  to  know  it  at  the 
same  instant,  and  the  whole  swarm  becomes  greatly 
agitated.  The  division  of  labor  in  the  hive  is  spon- 
taneous: the  bees  function  and  cooperate  as  do  the 
organs  in  our  own  bodies,  each  playing  its  part 
without  scheme  or  direction. 

This  community  of  mind  is  seen  in  such  an  in- 
stance as  that  of  the  migrating  lemmings  from  the 
Scandinavian  peninsula.  Vast  hordes  of  these  lit- 
tle creatures  are  at  times  seized  with  an  impulse 

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to  migrate  or  to  commit  suicide,  for  it  amounts  to 
that.     They  leave  their  habitat  in  Norway  and, 
without  being  deflected  by  any  obstacle,  march 
straight  toward  the  sea,  swimming  lakes  and  rivers 
that  lie  in  their  way.     When  the  coast  is  reached, 
they  enter  the  water  and  continue  on  their  course. 
Ship   captains   report   sailing   for   hours   through 
waters  literally  alive  with  them.     This   suicidal 
act  of  the  lemmings  strikes  one  as  a  kind  of  insanity. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  puzzling  phenomena  I  know 
of  in  animal  life.     But  the  migration  of  all  animals 
on  a  large  scale  shows  the  same  unity  of  purpose. 
The  whole  tribe  shares  in  a  single  impulse.     The 
annual  migration  of  the  caribou  in  the  North  is  an 
illustration.     In  the  flocking  birds  this  unity  of 
mind  is  especially  noticeable.     The  vast  armies  of 
passenger  pigeons  which  we  of  an  older  generation 
saw  in  our  youth  moved  like  human  armies  under 
orders.     They  formed  a  unit.     They  came  in  count- 
less hordes  like  an  army  of  invasion,  and  they 
departed  in  the  same  way.     Their  orders  were 
written  upon  the  air;  their  leaders  were  as  intangi- 
ble as  the  shadows  of  their  wings.     The  same  is 
true  of  all  our  flocking  birds;  a  flock  of  snow  bunt- 
ings, or  of  starlings,  or  of  blackbirds,  will  act  as 
one  body,  performing  their  evolutions  in  the  air 
with  astonishing  precision. 

In  Florida,  in  the  spring  when  the  mating-instinct 
is  strong,  I  have  seen  a  flock  of  white  ibises  waltz- 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

ing  about  the  sky,  going  through  various  intricate 
movements,  with  the  precision  of  dancers  in  a 
baUroom  quadrille.  No  sign,  no  signal,  no  guid- 
ance whatever.  Let  a  body  of  men  try  it  under 
the  same  conditions,  and  behold  the  confusion,  and 
the  tumbling  over  one  another!  At  one  moment 
the  birds  would  wheel  so  as  to  bring  their  backs 
in  shadow,  and  then  would  flash  out  the  white  of 
their  breasts  and  under  parts.  It  was  like  the  open- 
ing and  shutting  of  a  giant  hand,  or  the  alternate 
rapid  darkening  and  brightening  of  the  sail  of  a 
tacking  ice-boat.  This  is  the  spirit  of  the  flock. 
When  a  hawk  pursues  a  bird,  the  birds  tack  and 
turn  as  if  linked  together.  When  one  robin  dashes 
off  in  hot  pursuit  of  another,  behold  how  their 
movements  exactly  coincide!  The  hawk-hunted 
bird  often  escapes  by  reaching  the  cover  of 
a  tree  or  a  bush,  but  not  by  dodging  its  pur- 
suer, as  a  rabbit  or  a  squirrel  will  dodge  a  dog. 
Schools   of  fish  act  with  the  same  machine-Uke 

unity. 

In  the  South,  I  have  seen  a  large  area  of  water, 
acres  in  extent,  uniformly  agitated  by  a  school  of 
mullets  apparently  feeding  upon  some  infusoria  on 
the  surface,  and  then  instantly,  as  if  upon  a  given 
signal,  the  fish  would  dive  and  the  rippling  cease. 
It  showed  a  unity  of  action  as  of  ten  thousand 
spindles  controlled  by  electricity. 

How  quickly  the  emotion  of  fear  is  communi- 

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cated  among  the  wild  animals!  How  wild  and 
alarmed  the  deer  become  after  the  opening  of  the 
first  day  of  the  shooting  season.  Those  who  have 
not  seen  or  heard  a  hunter  seem  to  feel  the  impend- 
ing danger. 

The  great  flocks  of  migrating  butterflies  (the 
monarch)  illustrate  the  same  law.  In  the  fall  they 
are  all  seized  with  this  impulse  to  go  South  and 
thousands  of  them  march  in  one  body.  At  night 
they  roost  in  the  trees.  I  have  seen  photographs 
of  them  in  which  they  appeared  like  a  new  kind  of 
colored  foliage  covering  the  trees.  In  the  return 
flight  in  the  spring,  the  same  massing  again  occurs. 
Recently  the  Imperial  Valley  in  California  was  in- 
vaded by  a  vast  army  of  worms  moving  from  east 
to  west.  In  countries  that  have  been  cursed  with 
a  plague  of  grasshoppers  witnesses  of  the  spectacle 
describe  them  as  moving  in  the  same  way.  They 
stopped  or  delayed  railway  trains  and  auto- 
mobiles, their  crushed  bodies  making  the  rails 
and  highways  as  slippery  as  grease  would  have 
made  them.  Ten  million  or  ten  billion  behaving 
as  one. 

This  community  of  mind  stands  the  lower  orders 
in  great  stead.  It  makes  up  to  them  in  a  measure 
for  the  want  of  reason  and  judgment.  In  what 
we  call  telepathy  we  get  hints  of  the  same  thing 
among  ourselves.  Telepathy  is  probably  a  sur- 
vival from  our  earlier  animal  state. 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

II.      MAETERLINCK  ON  THE  BEE 

Maeterlinck,  in  his  *'Life  of  the  Bee"  resists  the 
conclusion  of  Sir  John  Lubbock  that  flies  are  more 
intelligent  than  honey  bees: 

If  you  place  in  a  bottle  half  a  dozen  bees  [says  Sir 
John],  and  the  same  number  of  flies,  and  lay  the  bottle 
down  horizontally  with  its  base  to  the  window,  you  will 
find  that  the  bees  will  persist  till  they  die  of  exhaustion 
or  hunger  in  their  endeavors  to  discover  an  issue  through 
the  glass;  while  the  flies,  in  less  than  two  minutes,  will 
all  have  sallied  forth  through  the  neck  on  the  opposite 
side. 

The  flies  are  more  intelligent  than  the  bees 
because  their  problems  of  life  are  much  more  com- 
plicated; they  are  fraught  with  many  more  dangers; 
their  enemies  lurk  on  all  sides;  while  the  bees  have 
very  few  natural  enemies.  There  are  no  bee- 
catchers  in  the  sense  that  there  are  scores  of  fly- 
catchers. I  know  of  no  bird  that  preys  upon  the 
worker  bees.  The  kingbird  is  sometimes  called  the 
*'bee  martin"  because  he  occasionally  snaps  up 
the  drones.  All  our  insectivorous  birds  prey  upon 
the  flies;  the  swallows  sweep  them  up  in  the  air,  the 
swifts  scoop  them  in,  while,  besides  the  so-called 
flycatchers,  the  cedar-birds,  the  thrushes,  the 
vireos,  and  all  other  soft-billed  birds,  subsist  more 
or  less  upon  them.  Try  to  catch  a  big  blow-fly 
upon  the  window-pane  and  see  how  diflicult  the 
trick  is,  while  with  a  honey  bee  it  is  no  trick  at  all. 

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Or  try  to  "swat**  the  ordinary  house-fly  with  your 
hand.  See  how  he  squares  himself  and  plants  him- 
self as  your  threatening  hand  approaches!  He  is 
ready  for  a  trial  of  speed.  He  seems  to  know  that 
your  hand  is  slower  than  he  is,  and  he  is  right  in 
rhost  cases.  Now  try  a  honey  bee.  The  case  is 
reversed.  The  bee  has  never  been  stalked ;  it  shows 
no  fear;  and  to  crush  it  is  as  easy  as  to  crush  a 
beetle. 

The  wit  and  cunning  of  all  animals  are  developed 
by  their  struggle  for  existence.  The  harder  the 
struggle,  the  more  their  intelligence.  Our  skunk 
and  porcupine  are  very  stupid  because  they  do  not 
have  to  take  thought  about  their  own  safety; 
Nature  has  done  that  for  them. 

To  bolster  up  his  case,  Maeterlinck  urges  that 
"the  capacity  for  folly  so  great  in  itself  argues 
intelligence,"  which  amounts  to  saying  that  the 
more  fool  you  are,  the  more  you  know. 

Buffon  did  not  share  Maeterlinck's  high  opinion 
of  the  intelligence  of  the  bee;  lie  thought  the  dog, 
the  monkey,  and  the  majority  of  other  animals 
possess  far  more;  an  opinion  which  I  share.  Indeed, 
of  free  intelligence  the  bee  possesses  very  little. 
The  slave  of  an  overmastering  instinct,  as  our 
new  nature  poet,  McCarthy,  says. 

She  makes  of  labor  an  eternal  lust. 

Bees  do  wonderful  things,  but  do  them  blindly. 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

They  work  as  well  (or  better)  in  the  darkness  as 
in  the  light.  The  Spirit  of  the  Hive  knows  and 
directs  all.  The  unit  is  the  swarm,  and  not  the 
individual  bee. 

The  bee  does  not  know  fear;  she  does  not  know 
love.  She  will  defend  the  swarm  with  her  life, 
but  her  fellows  she  heeds  not. 

It  is  very  doubtful  if  the  individual  bees  of  the 
same  hive  recognize  one  another  at  all  outside  the 
hive.  Every  beehunter  knows  how  the  bees  from 
the  same  tree  will  clip  and  strike  at  one  another 
around  his  box,  when  they  are  first  attracted  to  it. 
After  they  are  seriously  engaged  in  carrying  away 
his  honey,  they  pay  no  attention  to  one  another  or 
to  bees  from  other  swarms.  That  bees  tell  one 
another  of  the  store  of  honey  they  have  found  is 
absurd.     The  unity  of  the  swarm  attends  to  that. 

Maeterlinck  tells  of  a  little  Italian  bee  that  he 
once  experimented  upon  during  an  afternoon,  the 
results  showing  that  this  bee  had  told  the  news  of 
her  find  to  eighteen  bees!  Its  "vocabulary"  stood 
it  in  good  stead! 

Maeterlinck's  conception  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Hive 
was  an  inspiration,  and  furnishes  us  with  the  key 
to  all  that  happens  in  the  hive.  The  secret  of  all 
its  economies  are  in  the  phrase.  Having  hit  upon 
this  solution^  he  should  have  had  the  courage  to 
stand  by  it.  But  he  did  not.  He  is  continually 
forgetting  it  and  applying  to  his  problem  the  ex- 

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planations  we  apply  in  our  dealings  with  one 
another.  He  talks  of  the  power  of  the  bees  to  give 
"expression  to  their  thoughts  and  feelings";  of 
their  "vocabulary,"  phonetic  and  tactile;  he  says 
that  the  "extraordinary  also  has  a  name  and  place 
in  their  language";  that  they  are  able  to  "commun- 
icate to  each  other  news  of  an  event  occurring  out- 
side the  hive";  all  of  which  renders  his  Spirit  of 
the  Hive  superfluous.  He  quotes  from  a  French 
apiarist  who  says  that  the  explorer  of  the  dawn, — 
the  early  bee, — like  the  early  bird  that  catches  the 
worm,  returns  to  the  hive  with  the  news  that  "the 
lime-trees  are  blooming  to-day  on  the  banks  of  the 
canal";  "the  grass  by  the  roadside  is  gay  with  white 
clover";  "the  sage  and  the  lotus  are  about  to  open"; 
"the  mignonette  and  the  lilies  are  overflowing  with 
pollen."  Whereupon  the  bees  must  organize  quick- 
ly and  arrange  to  divide  the  work.  They  probably 
call  a  council  of  the  wise  ones  and  after  due  dis- 
cussion and  formalities  proceed  to  send  out  their 
working  expeditions.  "Five  thousand  of  the  stur- 
diest will  sally  forth  to  the  lime-trees,  while  three 
thousand  juniors  go  and  refresh  the  white  clover." 
"They  make  daily  calculations  as  to  the  means  o{ 
obtaining  the  greatest  possible  wealth  of  sac- 
charine liquid." 

When  Maeterlinck  speaks  of  "the  hidden  genius 
of  the  hive  issuing  its  commands,"  or  recognizes 
the  existence  among  the  bees  of  spiritual  communi- 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

cations  that  go  beyond  a  mere  "y^s"  or  "no,"  he 
is  true  to  his  own  conception. 

The  division  of  labor  among  hive  bees  is  of  course 
spontaneous,  like  all  their  other  economies — not  a 
matter  of  thought,  but  of  instinct. 

Maeterlinck  and  other  students  of  the  honey  bee 
make  the  mistake  of  humanizing  the  bee,  thus 
making  them  communicate  with  one  another  as  we 
communicate.  Bees  have  a  language,  they  say; 
they  tell  one  another  this  and  that;  if  one  finds 
honey  or  good  pasturage,  she  tells  her  sisters,  and 
so  on.  This  is  all  wide  of  the  mark.  There  is 
nothing  analogous  to  verbal  communication  among 
the  insects.  The  unity  of  the  swarm,  or  the  Spirit 
of  the  Hive,  does  it  all.  Bees  communicate  and 
cooperate  with  on^  another  as  the  cells  of  the  body 
communicate  and  cooperate  in  building  up  the 
various  organs.  The  spirit  of  the  body  coordinates 
all  the  different  organs  and  tissues,  making  a  unit 
of  the  body. 

If  some  outside  creature,  such  as  a  mouse  or  a 
snail,  penetrates  into  the  hive,  and  dies  there,  the 
bees  encase  it  in  wax,  or  bury  it  where  it  lies,  so 
that  it  cannot  contaminate  the  hive,  and  a  foreign 
object  in  the  body,  such  as  a  bullet  in  the  lungs, 
or  in  the  muscles,  becomes  encysted  in  an  analogous 
manner,  and  is  thus  rendered  harmless. 

Kill  a  bee  in  or  near  the  hive  and  the  smell  of 
its  crushed  body  will  infuriate  the  other  bees.  But 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

crush  a  bee  in  the  fields  or  by  the  bee-hunter's  box 
which  is  swarming  with  bees,  and  the  units  from 
the  same  hive  heed  it  not. 

Bees  have  no  fear.  They  have  no  love  or  attach- 
ment for  one  another  as  animals  have.  If  one  of 
their  number  is  wounded  or  disabled,  they  ruth- 
lessly expel  it  from  the  hive.  In  fact,  they  belong 
to  another  world  of  beings  that  is  absolutely 
oblivious  of  the  world  of  which  we  form  a  part. 
They  murder  or  expel  the  drones,  after  they  have 
done  their  work  of  fertilizing  the  queen,  in  the  most 
cruel  and  summary  manner.  Their  apparent  at- 
tachment to  the  queen,  and  their  loyalty  to  her, 
are  not  personal.  They  do  not  love  her.  It  is 
the  Spirit  of  the  Hive,  or  the  cult  of  the  swarm 
solicitous  about  itself.  There  are  no  brothers,  sis- 
ters, fathers,  mothers,  among  the  bees;  there  are 
only  co-workers,  working  not  for  the  present,  but 
for  the  future.  When  we  enter  the  kingdom  of  the 
bee,  we  must  leave  all  our  human  standards  behind. 
These  little  people  have  no  red  blood,  no  organs 
of  sense,  as  we  have;  they  breathe  and  hear  through 
their  legs,  their  antennje. 

The  drones  do  not  know  the  queen  as  such  in 
the  hive.  Their  instincts  lead  them  to  search  for 
her  in  the  air  during  her  nuptial  flight,  and  they 
know  her  only  there.  The  drones  have  thirteen 
thousand  eyes,  while  the  workers  have  only  six 
thousand.     This  double  measure  of  the  power  of 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

vision  is  evidently  to  make  sure  that  the  males 
discover  the  queen  in  her  course  through  the  air. 

The  guards  that  take  their  stand  at  the  gate, 
the  bees  that  become  fans  at  the  entrance  to  venti- 
late the  hive,  the  nurses,  the  bees  that  bring  the 
bee-bread,  the  bees  that  pack  it  into  the  cells,  the 
bees  that  go  forth  to  find  a  home  for  the  new  swarm, 
the  sweepers  and  cleaners  of  the  hive,  the  workers 
that  bring  propolis  to  seal  up  the  cracks  and  crevices 
— all  act  in  obedience  to  the  voiceless  Spirit  of 
the  Hive. 

After  we  have  discounted  Maeterlinck  so  far  as 
the  facts  will  bear  us  out  in  doing,  it  remains  to 
be  said  that  he  is  the  philosopher  of  the  insect 
world.  If  Fabre  is  the  Homer,  as  he  himself  has 
said,  Maeterlinck  is  the  Plato  of  that  realm.  How 
wisely  he  speaks  of  the  insect  world  in  his  latest 
volume,  "Mountain  Paths": 

The  insect  does  not  belong  to  our  world.  The  other 
animals,  the  plants  even,  notwithstanding  their  dumb 
life  and  the  great  secrets  which  they  cherish,  do  not  seem 
wholly  foreign  to  us.  In  spite  of  all,  we  feel  a  certain 
earthly  brotherhood  with  them.  They  often  surprise 
and  amaze  our  intelligence,  but  do  not  utterly  upset  it. 
There  is  something,  on  the  other  hand,  about  the  insect 
that  does  not  belong  to  the  habits,  the  ethics,  the  psy- 
chology of  our  globe.  One  would  be  inclined  to  say  that 
the  insect  comes  from  another  planet,  more  monstrous, 
more  energetic,  more  insane,  more  atrocious,  more 
infernal  than  our  own.  One  would  think  that  it  was 
born  of  some  comet  that  had  lost  its  course  and  died 
demented  in  space. 

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Speaking  of  the  intelligence  of  bees  reminds  me 
of  a  well-known  woodsman  and  camp-fire  man  who 
recently  extolled  in  print  the  intelligence  of  hornets, 
saying  that  they  have  the  ability  to  differentiate 
friends  from  foes.  "They  know  us  and  we  talk  to 
them  and  they  are  made  to  feel  as  welcome  as  any 
of  our  guests."  "When  a  stranger  visits  the  camp, 
they  attract  the  attention  of  one  they  know  who 
recognizes  their  signal  by  thought  or  gesture  and  leaves 
immediately,  returning  only  when  the  stranger  has 
departed.*'  (The  italics  are  mine.)  He  says  th© 
same  hornets  apparently  come  to  them  year  after 
year,  greeting  them  on  their  arrival,  and,  should 
they  be  accompained  by  strangers,  they  treat  them 
with  the  same  deference  as  "when  they  visit  us 
after  we  have  been  in  camp  some  time." 

Did  one  ever  hear  before  of  such  well-bred  and 
well-mannered  bees?  What  would  Maeterlinck 
say  to  all  that?  Its  absurdity  becomes  apparent 
when  we  remember  that  hornets  live  but  a  single 
season,  that  none  of  them  lives  over  the  winter, 
save  the  queen,  and  that  she  never  leaves  the  nest 
in  summer  after  she  has  got  her  family  of  workers 
around  her. 

ni.      ODD  OR  EVEN 

One  of  our  seven  wise  men  once  said  to  me,  *'IIave 
you  observed  that  in  the  inorganic  world  things  go 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

by  even  numbers,  and  in  the  organic  world  by 
odd?*'  I  immediately  went  down  to  the  edge  of 
a  bushy  and  swampy  meadow  below  our  camp  and 
brought  him  a  four-petaled  flower  of  galium,  and 
a  plant-stalk  with  four  leaves  in  a  whorl.  In 
another  locality  I  might  have  brought  him  dwarf 
jornel,  or  the  houstonia,-  or  wood-sorrel,  or  the 
evening-primrose.  Yet  even  numbers  are  certainly 
more  suggestive  of  mechanics  than  of  life,  while 
odd  numbers  seem  to  go  more  with  the  freedom 
and  irregularity  of  growing  things. 

One  may  make  pretty  positive  assertions  about 
non-living  things.  Crystals,  so  far  as  I  know,  are 
all  even-sided,  some  are  six  and  some  eight-sided; 
snowflakes  are  of  an  infinite  variety  of  pattern,  but 
the  number  six  rules  them.  In  the  world  of  living 
things  we  cannot  be  so  sure  of  ourselves.  Life 
introduces  something  indeterminate  and  incommen- 
surable. It  makes  use  of  both  odd  and  even, 
though  undoubtedly  odd  numbers  generally  prevail. 
Leaves  that  are  in  lobes  usually  have  three  or  five 
lobes.  But  the  stems  of  the  mints  are  four-square, 
and  the  cells  of  the  honey  bee  are  six-sided.  We 
have  five  fingers  and  five  toes,  though  only  four 
limbs.  Locomotion  is  mechanical  and  even  num- 
bers serve  better  than  odd.  Hence  the  sk-legged 
insects.  In  the  inorganic  world  things  attain  a 
stable  equilibrium,  but  in  the  living  world  the 
equilibrium  is  never  stable.    Things  are  not  stereo- 

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typed,  hence  the  danger  of  dogmatizing  about  living 
things.  Growing  Nature  will  not  be  driven  into 
a  corner. 

Well  may  Emerson  ask — 

Why  Nature  loves  the  number  five. 
And  why  the  star  form  she  repeats? 

The  number  five  rules  in  all  the  largest  floral 
families,  as  in  the  crowfoot  family,  the  rose  family 
(which  embraces  all  our  fruit  trees),  the  geranium 
family,  the  flax  family,  the  campanula  family,  the 
convolvulus  family,  the  nightshade  family.  Then 
there  is  a  large  number  of  flowers  the  parts  of 
which  go  in  threes,  one  of  the  best  known  of  which 
is  the  trillium.  In  animal  life  the  starfish  is  the 
only  form  I  recall  based  on  the  number  five. 

IV.      WHY  AND  HOW 

One  may  always  expect  in  living  nature  variations 
and  modifications.  It  is  useless  to  ask  why. 
Nature  is  silent  when  interrogated  in  this  way. 
Ask  her  how,  and  you  get  some  results.  If  we 
ask,  for  instance,  why  the  sting  of  the  honey  bee 
is  barbed,  and  those  of  the  hornet  and  wasp  and 
bumble-bee,  and  of  other  wild  bees,  are  smooth 
like  a  needle,  so  that  they  can  sting  and  sting  again, 
and  live  to  sting  another  day,  while  the  honey  bee 
stings  once  at  the  cost  of  its  life;  or  why  only  one 
species  of  fish  can  fly;  or  why  one  kind  of  eel  has 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

a  powerful  electric  battery;  or  why  the  porcupine 
has  an  armor  of  quills  while  his  brother  rodent  the 
woodchuck  has  only  fur  and  hair,  and  so  on — we 
make  no  addition  to  our  knowledge. 

But  if  we  ask,  for  instance,  how  so  timid  and 
defenseless  an  animal  as  the  rabbit  manages  to  sur- 
vive and  multiply,  we  extend  our  knowledge  of 
natural  history.  The  rabbit  prospers  by  reason  of 
its  wakefulness — by  never  closing  its  eyes — and  by 
its  speed;  also  by  making  its  home  where  it  can 
command  all  approaches,  and  so  flee  in  any  direc- 
tion. Or  if  we  ask  how  our  ruffed  grouse  survives 
and  prospers  in  a  climate  where  its  cousin  the 
quail  perishes,  we  learn  that  it  eats  the  buds  of 
certain  trees,  while  the  quail  is  a  ground-feeder 
and  is  often  cut  off  by  a  deep  fall  of  snow. 

If  we  ask  why  the  chipmunk  hibernates,  we  get 
no  answer;  but  if  we  ask  how  he  does  it,  we  find 
out  that  he  stores  up  food  in  his  den,  hence  must 
take  a  lunch  between  his  naps.  The  woodchuck 
hibernates,  also,  but  he  stores  up  fuel  in  the  shape 
of  fat  in  his  own  body.  The  porcupine  is  above 
ground  and  active  all  winter.  He  survives  by  ; 
gnawing  the  bark  of  certain  trees,  probably  the 
hemlock.  We  have  two  species  of  native  mice  that , 
look  much  alike,  the  white-footed  mouse  and  the 
jumping,  or  kangaroo,  mouse.  The  white-foot  is 
active  the  season  through,  over  and  under  the  snow; 
the  jumper  hibernates  all  winter,  and  apparently 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

accomplishes  the  feat  by  the  power  he  has  of  barely 
keeping  the  spark  of  Hfe  burning.  His  fires  are 
banked,  so  to  speak;  his  temperature  is  very  low, 
and  he  breathes  only  at  long  intervals. 

If,  then,  we  ask  with  Emerson,  ^'why  Nature  loves 
the  number  five,"  and  ^'why  the  star  form  she  re- 
')eats,"  we  shall  be  put  to  it  for  an  answer.  We  can 
only  say  that  with  living  things  odd  numbers  are 
more  likely  to  prevail,  and  with  non-living,  even 
numbers. 

Some  seeds  have  wings  and  some  have  not.  To 
ask  why,  is  a  blind  question,  but  if  we  ask  how  the 
wingless  seeds  get  sown,  we  may  add  to  our  knowl- 
edge. 

In  our  own  practical  lives,  in  which  experimen- 
tation plays  such  a  part,  we  are  often  compelled 
to  ask  why  this  result  and  not  that,  why  this 
thing  behaves  this  way  and  that  thing  that  way. 
We  are  looking  for  reasons  or  causes.  The  farmer 
asks  why  his  planting  in  this  field  was  a  failure, 
while  it  was  a  success  in  the  next  field,  and  so  on. 
An  analysis  of  his  soil  or  of  his  fertilizer  and  culture 
will  give  him  the  answer. 

V.      AN  INSOLUBLE  PROBLEM 

That  Darwin  was  a  great  natural  philosopher  and 
a  good  and  wise  man  admits  of  no  question,  but 
to  us,  at  this  distance,  it  seems  strange  enough  that 
he  should  have  thought  that  he  had  hit  upon  the 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

key  to  the  origin  of  species  in  the  slow  and  insensible 
changes  which  he  fancied  species  underwent  during 
the  course  of  the  geologic  ages,  and  should  thus 
have  used  the  phrase  as  the  title  of  his  book.  Had 
he  called  his  work  the  "Variability  of  Species,"  or 
the  "Modification  of  Species,"  it  would  not  have 
been  such  a  misnomer.  Sudden  mutations  give  us 
new  varieties,  but  not  new  species.  In  fact,  of  the 
origin  of  species  we  know  absolutely  nothing,  no 
more  than  we  do  about  the  origin  of  life  itself. 

Of  the  development  of  species  we  know  some  of 
the  factors  that  play  a  part,  as  the  influence  of 
environment,  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  the 
competitions  of  life.  But  do  we  not  have  to  assume 
an  inherent  tendency  to  development,  an  original 
impulse  as  the  key  to  evolution?  Accidental  condi- 
tions and  circumstances  modify,  but  do  not  origi- 
nate species.  The  fortuitous  plays  a  part  in  retard- 
ing or  hastening  a  species,  and  in  its  extinction,  but 
not  in  its  origin.  The  record  of  the  rocks  reveals 
to  us  the  relation  of  species,  and  their  succession 
in  geologic  time,  but  gives  no  hint  of  their  origin, 

Agassiz  believed  that  every  species  of  animal  and 
plant  was  the  result  of  a  direct  and  separate  act  of 
the  Creator.  But  the  naturalist  sees  the  creative 
energy  immanent  in  matter.  Does  not  one  have 
to  believe  in  something  like  this  to  account  for  the 
world  as  we  see  it?  And  to  account  for  us  also?— 
a  universal  mind  or  intelligence 

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Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns. 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man. 

Agassiz  was  too  direct  and  literal;  he  referred  to 
the  Infinite  Mystery  in  terms  of  our  own  wills  and 
acts.  When  we  think  of  a  Creator  and  the  thing 
created  as  two,  we  are  in  trouble  at  once.  They 
are  one,  as  fire  and  light  are  one,  as  soul  and  body 
are  one.  Darwin  said  he  could  not  look  upon  the 
world  as  the  result  of  chance,  and  yet  his  theory 
of  the  origin  of  species  ushers  us  into  a  chance 
world.  But  when  he  said,  speaking  of  the  infinite 
variety  of  living  forms  about  us,  that  they  "have 
all  been  produced  by  laws  acting  around  us,"  he 
spoke  as  a  great  philosopher.  These  laws  are 
not  fortuitous,  or  the  result  of  the  blind  grouping 
of  irrational  forces. 


VI.   A  LIVE  WORLD 

It  was  "the  divine  Kepler,"  as  Professor  Shaler 
calls  him,  who  looked  upon  the  earth  as  animated 
in  the  fashion  of  an  animal.  *'To  him  this  world 
is  so  endowed  with  activities  that  it  is  to  be  ac- 
counted alive."  But  his  critics  looked  upon  this 
fancy  of  Kepler's  as  proof  of  a  disordered  mind. 
Now  I  read  in  a  work  of  George  Darwin's  (son 
of  the  great  naturalist)  on  the  tides  that  the  earth 
in  many  ways  behaves  more  like  a  living  organism 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

than  like  a  rigid  insensate  sphere.  Its  surface 
throbs  and  palpitates  and  quivers  and  yields  to 
pressure  as  only  living  organisms  do.  The  tides  can 
hardly  be  regarded  as  evidences  of  its  breathing,  as 
Kepler  thought  they  could,  but  they  are  proof  of 
how  closely  it  is  held  in  the  clasp  of  the  heavenly 
forces.  It  is  like  an  apple  on  the  vast  sidereal  tree, 
that  has  mellowed  and  ripened  with  age.  Our  moon 
is  no  doubt  as  dead  as  matter  can  be.  It  is  hard  to 
fancy  its  surface  yielding  to  our  tread  as  does  that 
of  the  earth.  Then  we  know  that  the  absence  of 
air  and  water  on  it  is  proof  that  it  cannot  be 
endowed  with  what  we  call  life.  George  Darwin 
tells  us  that  when  we  walk  on  the  ground  we  warp 
and  bend  the  surface  very  much  as  we  might  bend 
or  dent  the  epidermis  of  a  colossal  pachyderm. 
He  and  his  brother  devised  an  instrument  by  which 
the  slight  fluctuations  of  the  ground,  as  we  move 
over  it,  could  be  measured.  The  instrument  was 
so  delicate  that  it  revealed  the  difference  of  effect 
produced  by  the  same  pressure  at  seven  feet  and 
at  six  feet  from  the  instrument!  More  than  that, 
the  instrument  revealed  the  throbbing  and  agita- 
tions which  the  ground  is  undergoing  at  all  times. 
They  found  that  minute  earthquakes,  or  micro- 
seisms,  as  the  Italians  call  them,  are  occurring  con- 
stantly. 

Another  instrument  has  been  invented  called  the 
microphone,  which  translates  this  earth's  move- 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

ments  into  sound — its  tremors  and  agitations  be- 
come audible.  This  microphone,  when  placed  in  a 
cave  twenty  feet  below  the  surface,  and  carefully 
protected  by  means  of  a  carpet  from  any  accidental 
disturbance  in  its  immediate  vicinity,  revealed 
what  is  called  "natural  telluric  phenomena;  such  as 
roarings,  explosions,  occurring  isolated  or  in  volleys, 
and  metallic  or  bell-like  sounds."  *'The  noises 
sometimes  become  intolerably  loud,"  especially  on 
one  occasion  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  half  an 
hour  before  a  sensible  earthquake. 

Our  apparently  impassive  and  slumbering  old 
planet  evidently  has  dreams  we  know  little  of. 

From  Professor  Shaler's  "Nature  and  Man  in 
America"  I  get  an  impression  which  again  deepens 
my  feeling  of  something  half  human  about 
our  lucky  planet,  at  least  something  progressive 
and  unequal,  like  life  itself.  Shaler  finds  that 
organic  development  in  the  Northern  Hemisphere 
is  more  advanced,  by  a  whole  geologic  period,  than 
in  the  Southern,  with  Europe  at  the  head  and 
Australia  the  greatest  laggard.  The  animal  life 
of  Australia  is  much  like  that  of  Europe  in 
the  tTurassic  period,  while  both  Asia  and  Africa 
possess  forms,  such  as  elephants,  and  tigers,  and 
lions,  which  abounded  in  Europe  in  Tertiary  times. 
Hence  the  Northern  Hemisphere  is  more  like  the 
head  of  the  beast,  and  the  Southern  more  like  the 
viscera.      The    Northern    races    easily    dominate 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  Southern.  The  flowering  of  civiUzation  is  in 
the  North.  It  is  very  certain  that  man  originated 
north  of  the  equator.  I  think  that  one  need  not 
expect  that  the  achievements  of  man  in  AustraHa, 
or  in  South  America,  will  rival  the  achievements 
of  man  nearer  the  magnetic  pole  of  the  earth. 

VII.      DARWINISM   AND   THE   WAR 

That  Darwinism  was  indirectly  one  of  the  causes 
of  the  World  War  seems  to  me  quite  obvious. 
Unwittingly  the  great  and  gentle  naturalist  has 
more  to  answer  for  than  he  ever  dreamed  of.  His 
biological  doctrine  of  the  struggle  for  existence, 
natural  selection,  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
fairly  intoxicated  the  Germans  from  the  first. 
These  theories  fell  in  well  with  their  militarism 
and  their  natural  cruelty  and  greediness.  Their 
philosophers  took  them  up  eagerly.  Weissmann 
fairly  made  a  god  of  natural  selection,  as  did  other 
German  thinkers.  And  when  they  were  ready  for 
war,  the  Germans  at  once  applied  the  law  of  the 
jungle  to  human  affairs.  The  great  law  of  evolu- 
tion, the  triumph  of  the  strong,  the  supremacy  of 
the  fit,  became  the  foundation  of  their  political 
and  national  ideals.  They  looked  for  no  higher 
proof  of  the  divinity  of  this  law,  as  applied  to 
races  and  nations,  than  the  fact  that  the  organic 
world  had  reached  its  present  stage  of  develop- 
ment through  the  operation  of  this  law.     Darwin 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

had  given  currency  to  these  ideas.  He  had 
denied  that  there  was  any  inherent  tendency  to 
development,  afiBrming  that  we  Hved  in  a  world  of 
chance,  and  that  power  comes  only  to  him  who  ex- 
erts power — half  truths,  all  of  them. 

The  Germans  as  a  people  have  never  been  born 
again  into  the  light  of  our  higher  civilization. 
They  are  morally  blind  and  politically  treacherous. 
Their  biological  condition  is  that  of  the  lower 
orders,  and  the  Darwinian  law  of  progress  came 
to  them  as  an  inspiration.  Darwin's  mind,  in  its 
absence  of  the  higher  vision,  was  akin  to  a  German 
mind.  In  his  plodding  patience,  his  devotion  to  de- 
tails, and  in  many  other  ways,  his  mind  was  Ger- 
man. But  in  his  candor,  his  truthfulness,  his  humil- 
ity, his  simplicity,  he  was  anything  but  German. 
Undoubtedly  his  teachings  bore  fruit  of  a  political 
and  semi-political  character  in  the  Teutonic  mind. 
The  Teutons  incorporated  the  law  of  the  jungle 
in  their  ethical  code.  Had  not  they  the  same 
right  to  expansion  and  to  the  usurpation  of  the 
territory  and  to  the  treasures  of  their  neighbors 
that  every  weed  in  the  fields  and  even  the  vermin 
of  the  soil  and  the  air  have?  If  they  had  the 
sanction  of  natural  law,  that  was  enough;  they 
were  quite  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  with  man's 
moral  nature  had  come  in  a  new  biological  law 
which  Darwin  was  not  called  upon  to  reckon  with, 
but  which  has  tremendous  authority  and  survival 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

value — the  law  of  right,  justice,  mercy,  honor,  love. 

We  do  not  look  for  the  Golden  Rule  among 
swine  and  cattle,  or  among  wolves  and  sharks; 
we  look  for  it  among  men;  we  look  for  honor,  for 
heroism,  for  self-sacrifice,  among  men.  None  of 
these  things  are  involved  in  the  Darwinian  hy- 
pothesis. There  is  no  such  thing  as  right  or 
wrong  in  the  orders  below  man.  These  are  purely 
human  distinctions.  It  is  not  wrong  for  the  wolf 
to  eat  the  lamb,  or  the  lamb  to  eat  the  grass,  but 
an  aggressive  war  is  wrong  to  the  depths  of  the 
farthest  star.  Germany's  assault  upon  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  the  world  was  a  crime  against 
the  very  heavens. 

Darwin  occupied  himself  only  with  the  natural 
evolution  of  organic  forms,  and  not  with  the 
evolution  of  human  communities.  He  treated 
man  as  an  animal,  and  fitted  him  into  the  zoolog- 
ical scheme.  He  removed  him  from  the  realm 
of  the  miraculous  into  the  plane  of  the  natural. 
For  all  purposes  of  biological  discussion,  man  is 
an  animal,  but  that  is  not  saying  he  is  only  an 
animal,  and  still  under  the  law  of  animal  evolu- 
tion. The  European  man  is  supposed  to  have 
passed  the  stage  of  savagery,  in  which  the  only 
rule  of  right  is  the  rule  of  might.  To  have  made 
Darwinism  an  excuse  for  a  war  of  aggression  is 
to  have  debased  a  sound  natural  philosophy  to  a 
selfish  and  ignoble  end. 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

Germany  lifted  the  law  to  the  human  realm  and 
staked  her  all  upon  it,   and  failed.     The  moral 
sense  of  the  world — the  sense  of  justice,  of  fair 
play — was  against  her,  and  inevitably  she  went 
down.     Her  leaders   were   morally  blind.     When 
the  rest  of  the  world  talked  of  moral  standards, 
the  German  leaders  said,  "We  think  you  are  fools." 
But  these  standards  brought  England  into  the 
war — the  sacredness  of  treaties.    They  brought  the 
United  States  in.     We  saw  a  common  enemy  in 
Germany,  an  enemy  of  mankind.     We  sent  mil- 
lions of  men  to  France  for  an  ideal — for  justice 
and  fair  play.     To  see  our  standards  of  right  and 
justice  ignored  and  trampled  upon  in  this  way 
was  intolerable.     The  thought  of  the  world  being 
swayed  by  Prussianism  was  unbearable.     I  said 
to  myself  from  the  first,  *'The  Allies  have  got  to 
win;    there   is   no   alternative.'*      And   what   as- 
tonishes  me  is  that  certain  prominent  English- 
men, such  as  Lord  Morley,  and  others,  did  not  see 
it.  Would  they  have  sat  still  and  watched  Germany 
destroy  France  arid  plant  herself  upon  the  Channel 
and  make  ready  to   destroy  England?    The  very 
framework  of  our  moral  civilization  would  have 
been  destroyed.   Darwin  little  dreamed  to  what  his 
natural  selection  theory  was  to  lead. 

VIII.    THE  ROBIN 

Of  all  our  birds  the  robin  has  life  in  the  fullest 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

measure,  or  best  stands  the  Darwinian  test  of  the 
fittest  to  survive.  His  versatility,  adaptiveness, 
and  fecundity  are  remarkable.  While  not  an 
omnivorous  feeder,  he  yet  has  a  very  wide  range 
among  fruits  and  insects.  From  cherries  to  cur- 
rants and  strawberries  he  ranges  freely,  while  he 
is  the  only  thrush  that  makes  angle-worms  one 
of  his  dietetic  staples  and  looks  upon  a  fat  grub 
as  a  rare  tidbit.  Then  his  nesting-habits  are  the 
most  diverse  of  all.  Now  he  is  a  tree-builder  in 
the  fork  of  a  trunk  or  on  a  horizontal  branch, 
then  a  builder  in  vines  or  rosebushes  around  your 
porch,  then  on  some  coign  of  vantage  about 
your  house  or  barn,  or  under  the  shed,  or  under  a 
bridge,  or  in  the  stone  wall,  or  on  the  ground  above 
a  hedge.  I  have  known  him  to  go  into  a  well  and 
build  there  on  a  projecting  stone.  He  even  nests 
beyond  the  Arctic  Circle,  and  it  is  said  he  never 
sings  sweeter  than  when  singing  during  those 
long  Arctic  days. 

He  brings  off  his  first  brood  in  May,  and  the 
second  in  June,  and  if  a  dry  season  does  not 
seriously  curtail  his  food-supply,  a  third  one  in 
September.  He  is  a  hustler  in  every  sense  of  the 
word — a  typical  American  in  his  enterprise  and 
versatility.  His  voice  is  the  first  I  hear  in  the 
morning,  and  the  last  at  night.  Little  wonder 
that  there  are  twenty  robins  to  one  bluebird,  or 
wood  thrush,   or  catbird.     The   song  sparrow  is 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

probably  our  next  most  successful  bird,  but  she 
is  far  behind  the  robin.  We  could  never  have 
a  plague  of  song  sparrows  or  bluebirds,  but  since 
the  robins  are  now  protected  in  the  South  as  well 
as  in  the  North,  we  are  exposed  to  the  danger  of  a 
plague  of  robins.  Since  they  may  no  longer  have 
robin  pot-pies  in  Mississippi,  the  time  is  near  at 
hand  when  we  may  no  longer  have  cherry-pies 
in  New  York  or  New  England.  Yet  who  does  not 
cherish  a  deep  love  for  the  robin  .^^  He  is  a  ple- 
beian bird,  but  he  adds  a  touch  to  life  in  the 
country  that  one  would  not  like  to  miss. 

The  robin  is  neither  a  walker  nor  a  hopper; 
he  is  doomed  always  to  be  a  runner.  Go  slow  he 
cannot;  his  engine  is  always  *'in  high" — it  starts 
"in  high"  and  stops  *'in  high." 

IX.      THE   WEASEL 

In  wild  life  the  race  is  not  always  to  the  STvift, 
nor  the  battle  to  the  strong.  For  instance,  the 
weasel  catches  the  rabbit  and  the  red  squirrel, 
both  of  which  are  much  more  fleet  of  foot  than 
is  he.  The  red  squirrel  can  fairly  fly  through  the 
tops  of  the  trees,  where  the  weasel  would  be  en- 
tirely out  of  its  element,  and  the  rabbit  can  easily 
leave  him  behind,  and  yet  the  weasel  captures 
and  sucks  the  blood  of  both.  Recently,  when  the 
ground  was  covered  with  our  first  snow,  some  men 
at  work  in  a  field  near  me  heard  a  rabbit  cry  on  the 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

slope  below  them.  Their  dog  rushed  down  and 
found  a  weasel  holding  a  rabbit,  which  it  released 
on  the  approach  of  the  dog  and  took  to  the  cover 
of  a  near-by  stone  wall.     The  whole  story  was 

I  written  there  on  the  snow.  The  bloodsucker  had 
pursued  the  rabbit,  pulling  out  tufts  of  fur  for 
many  yards  and  then  had  pulled  it  down. 

'*  Two  neighbors  of  mine  were  hunting  in  the  woods 
when  they  came  upon  a  weasel  chasing  a  red  squir- 
rel around  the  trunk  of  a  big  oak;  round  and  round 
they  went  in  a  fury  of  flight  and  pursuit.  The 
men  stood  and  looked  on.  It  soon  became  apparent 
that  the  weasel  was  going  to  get  the  squirrel,  so 
they  watched  their  chance  and  shot  the  blood- 
sucker. Why  the  squirrel  did  not  take  to  the  tree- 
tops,  where  the  weasel  probably  would  not  have 
followed  him,  and  thus  make  his  escape — who 
knows?  One  of  my  neighbors,  however,  says  he 
has  seen  where  a  weasel  went  up  a  tree  and  took  a 
gray  squirrel  out  of  its  nest  and  dropped  it  on  the 
snow,  then  dragged  it  to  cover  and  left  it  dead. 
The  weasel  seems  to  inspire  such  terror  in  its  vic- 
tim that  it  becomes  fairly  paralyzed  and  falls  an 
easy  prey.  Those  cruel,  blazing,  beadlike  eyes, 
that  gliding  snakelike  form,  that  fearless,  fatelike 
pursuit  and  tenacity  of  purpose,  all  put  a  spell  upon 
the  pursued  that  soon  renders  it  helpless.  A  weasel 
once  pursued  a  hen  to  my  very  feet  and  seized  it 
and  would  not  let  it  go  until  I  put  my  foot  upon  it 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

and  gripped  it  by  the  back  of  the  neck  with  my 
hand.  Its  methods  are  a  kind  of  SchrecJdichkeit  in 
the  animal  world.  It  is  the  incarnation  of  the 
devil  among  our  lesser   animals. 

X.      MISINTERPRETING   NATURE 

We  are  bound  to  misinterpret  Nature  if  we  start 
with  the  assumption  that  her  methods  are  at  all 
like  our  methods.  We  pick  out  our  favorites 
among  plants  and  animals,  those  that  best  suit  our 
purposes.  If  we  want  wool  from  the  sheep,  we 
select  the  best-fleeced  animals  to  breed  from.  If 
we  want  mutton,  we  act  accordingly.  If  we  want 
cows  for  quantity  of  milk,  irrespective  of  quality, 
we  select  with  that  end  in  view;  if  we  want  butter- 
fat,  we  breed  for  that  end,  and  so  on.  With  our 
fruits  and  grains  and  vegetables  we  follow  the  same 
course.  We  go  straight  to  our  object  with  as  little 
waste  and  delay  as  possible. 

Not  so  with  Nature.  She  is  only  solicitous  of 
those  qualities  in  her  fruits  and  grains  which  best 
enable  them  to  survive.  In  like  manner  she  sub- 
ordinates her  wool  and  fur  and  milk  to  the  same 
general  purpose.  Her  one  end  is  to  increase  and 
multiply.  In  a  herd  of  wild  cattle  there  will  be  no 
great  milchers.  In  a  band  of  mountain  sheep  there 
will  be  no  prize  fleeces.  The  wild  fowl  do  not  lay 
eggs  for  market. 

Those  powers  and  qualities  are  dominant  in  the 

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UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

wild  creatures  that  are  necessary  for  the  survival 
of  the  species — strength,  speed,  sharpness  of  eye 
and  ear,  keenness  of  scent;  all  wait  upon  their  sur- 
vival value. 

Our  hawks  could  not  survive  without  wing-power 
or  great  speed,  but  the  crow  survives  without  this 
power,  because  he  is  an  omnivorous  feeder  and  can 
thrive  w^here  the  hawk  would  starve,  and  also 
because  no  bird  of  prey  wants  him,  and,  more  than 
that,  because  he  is  dependent  upon  nothing  that 
requires  speed  to  secure.  He  is  cunning  and  sus- 
picious for  reasons  that  are  not  obvious.  The  fox 
in  this  country  requires  both  speed  and  cunning, 
but  in  South  America  Darwin  saw  a  fox  so  indiffer- 
ent and  unafraid  that  he  walked  up  to  it  and  killed 
it  with  his  geologist's  hammer.  Has  it  no  enemies 
in  that  country? 

Nature's  course  is  always  a  roundabout  one. 
Our  petty  economies  are  no  concern  of  hers.  Man 
wants  specific  results  at  once.  Nature  works 
slowly  to  general  results.  Her  army  is  drilled  only 
in  battle.  Her  tools  grow  sharper  in  the  using. 
The  strength  of  her  species  is  the  strength  of  the 
obstacles  they  overcome.  We  misinterpret  Darwin 
when  we  assume  that  Nature  selects  as  man  selects. 
Nature  selects  solely  upon  the  principle  of  power  of 
survival.  Man  selects  upon  the  principle  of  utility. 
He  wants  some  particular  good — a  race-horse,  a 
draft-horse — better  quality  or  greater  quantity  of 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

this  or  that.  Nature  aims  to  fill  the  world  with  her 
progeny.  Only  power  to  win  in  the  competition  of 
life  counts  with  her.  As  I  have  so  often  said,  she 
plays  one  hand  against  the  other.  The  stakes  are 
hers  whichever  wins.  Wheat  and  tares  are  all  one 
to  her.  She  pits  one  species  of  plant  or  animal 
against  another — heads  I  win,  tails  you  lose.  Some 
plants  spread  both  by  seed  and  runners,  this 
doubles  their  chances;  they  are  kept  in  check 
because  certain  localities  are  unfavorable  to  them. 
I  know  a  section  of  the  country  where  a  species 
of  mint  has  completely  usurped  the  pastures.  It 
makes  good  bee  pasturage,  but  poor  cattle  pas- 
turage. Quack  grass  will  run  out  other  grass 
because  it  travels  under  ground  in  the  root  as  well 
as  above  ground  in  the  seed. 

XI.      NATURAL   SCULPTURE 

We  may  say  that  all  the  forms  in  the  non-li\ang 
world  come  by  chance,  or  by  the  action  of  the  un- 
directed irrational  physical  forces,  mechanical  or 
mechanico-chemical.  There  are  not  two  kinds  of 
forces  shaping  the  earth's  surface,  but  the  same 
forces  are  doing  two  kinds  of  work,  piling  up  and 
'  pulling  down — aggregating  and  accumulating,  and 
separating  and  disintegrating. 

It  is  to  me  an  interesting  fact  that  the  striking 
and  beautiful  forms  in  inorganic  nature  are  not  as 
a  rule  the  result  of  a  building-up  process,  but  of  a 

181 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

pulling-down  or  degradation  process.  A  natural 
bridge,  an  obelisk,  caves,  canals,  the  profile  in  the 
rocks,  the  architectural  and  monumental  rock 
forms,  such  as  those  in  the  Grand  Canon  and  in 
the  Garden  of  the  Gods,  are  all  the  result  of  ero- 
sion. Water  and  other  aerial  forces  are  the  build- 
ers and  sculptors,  and  the  nature  and  structure  of 
the  material  determine  the  form.  It  is  as  if  these 
striking  forms  were  inherent  in  the  rocks,  waiting 
for  the  erosive  forces  to  liberate  them.  The  strati- 
fied rocks  out  of  which  they  are  carved  were  not 
laid  down  in  forms  that  appeal  to  us,  but  layer  upon 
layer,  like  the  leaves  of  a  book;  neither  has  the 
crumpling  and  deformation  of  the  earth's  crust 
piled  them  up  and  folded  them  in  a  manner  artistic 
and  suggestive.  Yet  behold  what  the  invisible 
workmen  have  carved  out  of  them  in  the  Grand 
Canon!  It  looks  as  though  titanic  architects  and 
sculptors  had  been  busy  here  for  ages.  But  only 
little  grains  of  sand  and  a  vast  multitude  of  little 
drops  of  water,  active  through  geologic  ages,  were 
the  agents  that  wrought  this  stupendous  spectacle. 
If  the  river  could  have  builded  something  equally 
grand  and  beautiful  with  the  material  it  took  out 
of  this  chasm!  But  it  could  not — poetry  at  one 
end  of  the  series  and  dull  prose  at  the  other.  The 
deposition  took  the  form  of  broad,  featureless, 
uninteresting  plains — material  for  a  new  series  of 
stratified  rocks,  out  of  which  other  future  Grand 

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A  SHEAF  OF  NATURE  NOTES 

Canons  may  be  carved.  Thus  the  gods  of  erosion 
are  the  artists,  while  the  builders  of  the  mountains 
are  only  ordinary  workmeu. 


XT 

RUMINATIONS 

I.      MAN  A  PART  OF  NATURE 

This  bit  of  nature  which  I  call  myself,  and  which 
I  habitually  think  of  as  entirely  apart  from  the 
nature  by  which  I  am  surrounded,  going  its  own 
way,  crossing  or  defeating  or  using  the  forces  of 
the  nature  external  to  it,  is  yet  as  strictly  a  part  of 
the  total  energy  we  call  nature  as  is  each  wave  in 
the  ocean,  no  matter  how  high  it  raises  its  crest,  a 
part  of  the  ocean.  Our  wills,  our  activities,  go  but 
a  little  way  in  separating  us  from  the  totality  of 
things.  Outside  of  the  very  limited  sphere  of  what 
we  call  our  spontaneous  activities,  we  too  are  things 
and  are  shaped  and  ruled  by  forces  that  we  know 
not  of. 

It  is  only  in  action,  or  in  the  act  of  living,  that 
we  view  ourselves  as  distinct  from  nature.  When 
we  think,  we  see  that  we  are  a  part  of  the  world  in 
which  we  live,  as  much  so  as  the  trees  and  the  other 
animals  are  a  part.  Intellect  unites  what  life  sepa- 
rates. Our  whole  civilization  is  the  separating  of 
one  thing  from  another  and  classifying  and  organiz- 
ing them.  We  work  ourselves  away  from  rude 
Nature  while  we  are  absolutely  dependent  upon 

184 


RUMINATIONS 

her  for  health  and  strength.  We  cease  to  be  sav- 
ages while  we  strive  to  retain  the  savage  health  and 
virility.  We  improve  Nature  while  we  make  war 
upon  her.  We  improve  her  for  our  own  purposcs. 
AU  the  forces  we  use — wind,  w^ater,  gravity,  elec- 
tricity— are  still  those  of  rude  Nature.  Is  it  not 
by  gravity  that  the  water  rises  to  the  top  stories  of 
our  houses?  Is  it  not  by  gravity  that  the  aeroplane 
soars  to  the  clouds.?  When  the  mammoth  guns 
hurl  a  ton  of  iron  twenty  miles  they  pit  the  greater 
weight  against  the  lesser.  The  lighter  projectile 
goes,  and  the  heavier  gun  stays.  So  the  athlete 
hurls  the  hammer  because  he  greatly  outweighs  it. 

n.   MARCUS  AURELIUS  ON  DEATH 

Marcus  Aurelius  speaks  of  death  as  "nothing 
else  than  a  dissolution  of  the  elements  of  which 
every  human  being  is  composed."  May  we  say  it  is 
like  a  redistribution  of  the  type  after  the  page  is 
printed  .f^  The  type  is  unchanged,  only  the  order  of 
arrangement  is  broken  up.  In  the  death  of  the 
body  the  component  elements — water,  lime,  iron, 
phosphorus,  magnesia,  and  so  on — remain  the 
same,  but  their  organization  is  changed.  Is  thai 
all.?  Is  this  a  true  analogy.?  The  meaning  of  the 
printed  page,  the  idea  embodied,  is  the  main  matter. 
Can  this  idea  be  said  to  exist  independent  of  the 
type.?  Only  in  the  mind  that  reads  the  page,  and 
then  not  permanently.     Then  it  is  only  an  arrange- 

185 


UNDER  THE  INIAPLES 

ment  of  molecules  of  matter  in  the  bram,  which  is 
certainly  only  temporary.  On  the  printed  page  it 
is  a  certain  combination  of  white  and  black  that 
moves  the  cells  of  the  brain  through  the  eye  to 
create  the  idea.  So  the  conception  in  our  minds 
of  our  neighbor  or  friend — his  character,  his  per- 
sonality— exists  after  he  is  dead,  but  when  our  own 
brain  ceases  to  function,  where  is  it  then? 

We  rather  resent  being  summed  up  in  this  way 
in  terms  of  physics,  or  even  of  psychology.  Can 
you  reconstruct  the  flower  or  the  fruit  from  its 
ashes?  Physics  and  biochemistry  and  psychology 
describe  all  men  in  the  same  terms;  our  component 
parts  are  all  the  same;  but  character,  personality, 
mentality — do  not  these  escape  your  analysis?  and 
are  they  not  also  real? 

in.      THE  INTERPRETER  OF  NATURE 

Emerson  quotes  Bacon  as  saying  that  man  is  the 
minister  and  interpreter  of  Nature.  But  man  has 
been  very  slow  to  see  that  he  is  a  part  of  that  same 
Nature  of  which  he  is  the  minister  and  interpreter. 
His  interpretation  is  not  complete  until  he  has 
learned  to  interpret  himself  also.  This  he  has  done 
all  unconsciously  through  his  art,  his  literature,  his 
religion,  his  philosophy.  Painting  interprets  one 
phase  of  him,  music  another,  poetry  another,  sculp- 
ture another,  his  civic  orders  another,  his  creeds  and 
beliefs  and  superstitions  another,  so  that  at  this 

186 


RUMINATIONS 

day  and  age  of  the  world  he  has  been  pretty  wel? 
interpreted.  But  the  final  interpretation  is  as  fai 
off  as  ever,  because  the  condition  of  man  is  not 
static,  but  dynamic.  He  is  forever  born  anew  into 
the  world  and  experiences  new  wonder,  new  joy. 
new  loves,  new  enthusiasms.  Nature  is  infinite, 
and  the  soul  of  man  is  infinite,  and  the  action  and 
reaction  between  the  two  which  gives  us  our  cul- 
ture and  our  civilization  can  never  cease.  When 
man  thinks  he  is  interpreting  Nature,  he  is  really 
interpreting  himself — reading  his  own  heart  and 
mind  through  the  forms  and  movements  that  sur- 
round him.  In  his  art  and  his  literature  he  bodies 
forth  his  own  ideals;  in  his  religion  he  gives  the 
measure  of  his  awe  and  reverence  and  his  aspira- 
tions toward  the  perfect  good;  in  his  science  he 
illustrates  his  capacity  for  logical  order  and  for 
weighing  evidence.  There  is  no  astronomy  to  the 
night  prowler,  there  is  no  geology  to  the  woodchuck 
or  the  ground  mole,  there  is  no  biology  to  the  dog 
or  to  the  wolf,  there  is  no  botany  to  the  cows  and 
the  sheep.  All  these  sciences  are  creations  of  the 
mind  of  man;  they  are  the  order  and  the  logic  which 
he  reads  into  Nature.  Nature  interprets  man  to 
himself.  Her  beauty,  her  sublimity,  her  harmony, 
her  terror,  are  names  which  he  gives  to  the  emo- 
tions he  experiences  in  her  presence.  The  mid- 
night skies  sound  the  depths  of  his  capacity  for  the 
emotion  of  grandeur  and  immensity,  the  summer 

187 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

landscape  reveals  to  him  his  susceptibility  to 
beauty. 

It  is  considered  sound  rhetoric  to  speak  of  the 
statue  as  existing  in  the  block  of  marble  before  the 
sculptor  touches  it.  How  easy  to  fall  into  such 
!alse  analogies !  Can  we  say  that  the  music  existed 
in  the  flute  or  in  the  violin  before  the  musician 
touches  them?  The  statue  in  the  form  of  an  idea 
or  a  conception  exists  in  the  mind  of  the  sculptor, 
and  he  fashions  the  marble  accordingly.  Does  the 
book  exist  in  the  pot  of  printer's  ink.^^  Living 
things  exist  in  the  germ,  the  oak  in  the  acorn,  the 
chick  in  the  eggy  but  from  the  world  of  dead  matter 
there  is  no  resurrection  or  evolution.  Life  alone 
puts  a  particular  stamp  upon  it.  We  may  say  that 
the  snowflake  exists  in  the  cloud  vapor  because  of 
the  laws  of  crystallization,  but  the  house  does  not 
exist  in  a  thousand  of  brick  in  the  same  sense.  It 
exists  in  the  mind  of  the  builder. 

The  sculptor  does  not  interpret  the  marble;  he 
interprets  his  own  soul  through  the  medium  of  the 
marble — the  picture  is  not  in  the  painter's  color 
tubes  waiting  to  be  developed  as  the  flower  is  in 
the  bud;  it  is  in  the  artist's  imagination.  The 
apple  and  the  peach  and  the  wheat  and  the  corn 
exist  in  the  soil  potentially;  life  working  through 
the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  draws  their 
materials  out  and  builds  up  the  perfect  fruit.  To 
decipher,  to  interpret,  to  translate,  are  terms  that 

188 


RUMINATIONS 

apply  to  human  things,  and  not  to  universal  nature. 
We  do  not  interpret  the  stars  when  we  form  the 
constellations.  The  grouping  of  the  stars  in  the 
heavens  is  accidental — the  chair,  the  dipper,  the 
harp,  the  huntsman,  are  our  fabrications.  Does 
Shelley  interpret  the  skylark,  or  Wordsworth  the 
cuckoo,  or  Bryant  the  bobolink,  or  Whitman  the 
mockingbird  and  the  thrush?  Each  interprets 
his  own  heart.  Each  poet's  mind  is  the  die  or  seal 
that  gives  the  impression  to  this  wax. 

All  the  so-called  laws  of  Nature  are  of  our  own 
creation.  Out  of  an  unfailing  sequence  of  events 
we  frame  laws — the  law  of  gravity,  of  chemical 
affinity,  of  magnetism,  of  electricity — and  refer  to 
them  as  if  they  had  an  objective  reality,  when  they 
are  only  concepts  in  our  own  minds.  Nature  has 
no  statute  books  and  no  legislators,  though  we 
habitually  think  of  her  processes  under  these  sym- 
bols. Human  laws  can  be  annulled,  but  Nature's 
laws  cannot.  Her  ways  are  irrevocable,  though 
theology  revokes  or  suspends  them  in  its  own 
behalf.  It  was  Joshua's  mind  that  stopped  while 
he  conquered  his  enemies,  and  not  the  sun. 

The  winds  and  the  tides  do  not  heed  our  prayers; 
fire  and  flood,  famine  and  pestilence,  are  deaf  to  our 
appeals.  One  of  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  Emerson 
was  that  all  true  prayers  are  self-answered — the 
spirit  which  the  act  of  prayer  begets  in  the  sup- 
pliant is  the  answer.    A  heartfelt  prayer  for  faith 

189 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

or  courage  or  humility  is  already  answered  in  the 
attitude  of  soul  that  devoutly  asks  it.  We  know 
that  the  official  prayers  in  the  churches  for  victory 
to  the  armies  in  the  field  are  of  no  avail — and  how 
absurd  to  expect  them  to  be — but  who  shall  saythat 
the  prayer  of  the  soldier  on  the  eve  of  battle  may 
not  steady  his  hand  and  clinch  his  courage?  But 
the  prayer  for  rain  or  for  heat  or  cold,  or  for  the 
stay  of  an  epidemic,  or  for  any  material  good,  is 
as  vain  as  to  reach  one's  hands  for  the  moon. 

rV.      ORIGINAL  SOURCES 

The  writers  who  go  directly  to  life  and  Nature  foT 
their  material  are,  in  every  age,  few  compared  with 
the  great  number  that  go  to  the  libraries  and 
lecture-halls,  and  sustain  only  a  second-hand  rela- 
tion to  the  primary  sources  of  inspiration.  They 
cannot  go  directly  to  the  fountain-head,  but  de- 
pend upon  those  who  can  and  do.  They  are  like 
those  forms  of  vegetation,  the  mushrooms,  that 
have  no  chlorophyll,  and  hence  cannot  get  their 
food  from  the  primary  sources,  the  carbonic  acid 
in  the  air;  they  must  draw  it  from  the  remains  of 
plants  that  did  get  it  at  first-hand  from  Nature. 
Chlorophyll  is  the  miracle-worker  of  the  vegetable 
world;  it  makes  the  solar  power  available  for  life. 
It  is  in  direct  and  original  relation  to  the  sun.  It 
also  makes  animal  life  possible.  The  plant  can  go 
to  inorganic  nature  and  through  its  chlorophyll  can 

190 


RUMINATIONS 

draw  the  sustenance  from  it.  We  must  go  to  the 
plant,  or  to  the  animal  that  went  to  the  plant,  for 
our  sustenance. 

The  secondary  men  go  to  books  and  creeds  and 
institutions  for  their  religion,  but  the  original  men, 
having  the  divine  chlorophyll,  go  to  Nature  herself. 
The  stars  in  their  courses  teach  them.  The  earth 
inspires  them. 

V.      THE  COSMIC  HARMONY 

The  order  and  the  harmony  of  the  Cosmos  is  not 
like  that  which  man  produces  or  aims  to  produce 
in  his  work — the  order  and  harmony  that  will  give 
him  the  best  and  the  quickest  results;  but  it  is  an 
astronomic  order  and  harmony  which  flows  inevit- 
ably from  the  circular  movements  and  circular 
forms  to  which  the  Cosmos  tends.  Revolution  and 
evolution  are  the  two  feet  upon  which  creation  goes. 
All  natural  forms  strive  for  the  spherical.  The 
waves  on  the  beach  curve  and  roll  and  make  the 
pebbles  round.  From  the  drops  of  rain  and  dew  to 
the  mighty  celestial  orbs  one  law  prevails.  Nature 
works  to  no  special  ends;  she  works  to  all  ends;  and 
her  harmony  results  from  her  universality.  The 
comets  are  apparently  celestial  outlaws,  but  they 
all  have  their  periodic  movements,  and  make  their 
rounds  on  time.  Collisions  in  the  abysses  of  space, 
which  undoubtedly  take  place,  look  like  dishar- 
monies and  failures  of  order,  as  they  undoubtedly 

191 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

are.  Wliat  else  can  we  call  them?  When  a  new 
star  suddenly  appears  in  the  heavens,  or  an  old  one 
blazes  up,  and  from  a  star  of  the  tenth  magnitude 
becomes  one  of  the  first,  and  then  slowly  grows 
dim  again,  there  has  been  a  celestial  catastrophe, 
an  astronomic  accident  on  a  cosmic  scale.  Had 
such  things  occurred  frequently  enough,  would  not 
the  whole  solar  system  have  been  finally  wrecked, 
or  could  it  even  have  begun  .^  For  the  dishar- 
monies in  Nature  we  must  look  to  the  world  of  the 
living  things,  but  even  here  the  defeats  and  failures 
are  the  exception — else  there  would  be  no  living 
world.  Organic  evolution  reaches  its  goal  despite 
the  delays  and  suffering  and  its  devious  course. 
The  inland  stream  finds  its  way  to  the  sea  at  last, 
though  its  course  double  and  redouble  upon  itself 
scores  of  times,  and  it  travels  ten  miles  to  advance 
one.  A  drought  that  destroys  animal  and  vege- 
table life,  or  a  flood  that  sweeps  it  away,  or  a 
thunderbolt  that  shatters  a  living  tree,  are  all  dis- 
harmonies of  Nature.  In  fact,  one  may  say  that 
disease,  pestilence,  famine,  tornadoes,  wars,  and 
all  forms  of  what  we  call  evil  are  disharmonies,  be- 
cause their  tendency  is  to  defeat  the  orderly  de- 
velopment of  life. 

The  disharmonies  in  Nature  in  both  the  living 
and  the  non-living  worlds  tend  to  correct  them- 
selves. When  Nature  cannot  make  both  ends  meet, 
she  diminishes  her  girth.  If  there  is  not  food  enough 

192 


RUMINATIONS 

for  her  creatures,  she  lessens  the  number  of  mouths 
to  be  fed.  A  surplus  of  food,  on  the  other  hand, 
tends  to  multiply  the  mouths. 

Man  often  introduces  an  element  of  disorder  into 
Nature.  His  work  in  deforesting  the  land  brings 
on  floods  and  the  opposite  conditions  of  drought. 
He  destroys  the  natural  checks  and  compensations. 

VI.      COSMIC   RHYTHMS 

The  swells  that  beat  upon  the  shores  of  the  ocean 
are  not  merely  the  result  of  a  local  agitation  of  the 
waters.  The  pulse  of  the  earth  is  in  them.  The 
pulse  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  is  in  them.  They 
are  more  cosmic  than  terrestrial.  The  earth  wears 
her  seas  like  a  loose  garment  which  the  sun  and 
moon  constantly  pluck  at  and  shift  from  side  to 
side.  Only  the  ocean  feels  the  tidal  impulse,  the 
heavenly  influences.  The  great  inland  bodies  of 
water  are  unresponsive  to  them — they  are  too  small 
for  the  meshes  of  the  solar  and  lunar  net.  Is  it  not 
equally  true  that  only  great  souls  are  moved  by  the 
great  fundamental  questions  of  life?  What  a 
puzzle  the  tides  must  have  been  to  early  man! 
What  proof  they  afford  of  the  cosmic  forces  that 
play  upon  us  at  all  times  and  hold  us  in  their  net! 
Without  the  proof  they  afford,  we  should  not  know 
how  we  are  tied  to  the  solar  system.  The  lazy, 
reluctant  waters — how  they  follow  the  sun  and 
moon,  "with  fluid  step,"  as  Whitman  says,  **round 

193 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  world"!  The  land  feels  the  pull  also  and 
would  follow  if  it  could.  But  the  mobile  clouds 
go  their  way,  and  the  aerial  ocean  makes  no  sign. 
The  pull  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  is  upon  you  and 
me  also,  but  we  are  all  unconscious  of  it.  We  are 
bodies  too  slight  to  affect  the  beam  of  the  huge  scale. 

VII.      THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LIFE 

It  is  remarkable,  I  think,  that  Professor  Osborn, 
in  his  "Origin  and  Evolution  of  Life,"  makes  no 
account  of  the  micro-organisms  or  unicellular  lives 
that  are  older  than  the  continents,  older  than  the 
Cambrian  rocks,  and  that  have  survived  unchanged 
even  to  our  times.  I  saw  in  the  Grand  Canon  of 
the  Colorado  where  they  were  laid  down  horizon- 
tally on  the  old  Azoic  or  original  rocks,  as  if  by  the 
hand  of  a  mason  building  the  foundation  of  a 
superstructure.  AH  the  vast  series  of  limestone 
rocks  are  made  up  from  the  skeletons  of  minute 
living  bodies.  Other  strata  of  rocks  are  made  up 
of  the  skeletons  of  diatoms.  Some  of  our  polishing 
powders  are  made  from  these  rocks.  Formed  of 
pure  silex,  these  rocks  are  made  up  of  the  skeletons 
of  organisms  of  many  exquisite  forms,  Foramini- 
jerce.  The  Pyramids  are  said  to  be  built  of  rocks 
formed  by  these  organisms.  "No  single  group  of 
the  animal  kingdom,"  says  Mr.  W.  B.  Carpenter, 
"has  contributed,  or  is  at  present  contributing,  so 
largely  as  has  the  Foraminiferoe  to  the  formation 

194 


RUMINATIONS 

of  the  earth's  crust."  In  the  face  of  these  facts, 
how  unsatisfactory  seem  Professor  Osborn's  state- 
ments that  hfe  probably  originated  on  the  conti- 
nents, either  in  the  moist  crevices  of  rocks  or  soils, 
in  the  fresh  waters  of  continental  pools,  or  in  the 
slightly  saline  waters  of  the  "bordering  primordial 
seas."  This  last  suggestion  comes  nearer  the 
mark.  There  is  no  variation  during  geologic  time 
of  these  primordial  living  organisms.  All  con- 
ceivable changes  of  environment  have  passed  over 
them,  but  they  change  not.  Bacteria  struggle 
together,  one  form  devouring  another  form.  Uni- 
cellular life  long  precedes  multicellular.  Biologists 
usually  begin  with  the  latter;  the  former  are  fixed; 
with  the  latter  begins  development  or  evolution, 
and  the  peopling  of  the  world  with  myriads  of 
animal  forms. 

VIII.      SPENDTHRIFT  NATURE 

Emerson  says,  "Nature  is  a  spendthrift,  but  takes 
the  shortest  way  to  her  ends."  She  is  like  our- 
selves, she  is  ourselves  written  large — written  in 
animal,  in  tree,  in  fruit,  in  flower.  She  is  lavish  of 
that  of  which  she  has  the  most.  She  is  lavish  of 
her  leaves,  but  less  so  of  her  flowers,  still  less  of 
her  fruit,  and  less  yet  of  her  germinal  parts.  The 
production  of  seed  is  a  costly  process  to  the  plant. 
Many  trees  yield  fruit  only  every  other  year. 
I  say  that  Nature  is  a  spendthrift  only  of  what 

195 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

she  has  the  most.  Behold  the  clouds  of  pollen  from 
the  blooming  pines  and  from  the  grasses  in  the 
meadow.  She  is  less  parsimonious  with  her 
winged  seeds,  such  as  of  the  maple  and  the  elm,  than 
with  her  heavy  nuts — butternuts,  hickory-nuts, 
acorns,  beechnuts,  and  so  on.  All  these  depend 
upon  the  agency  of  the  birds  and  squirrels  to  scat- 
ter them.  She  offers  them  the  wage  of  the  sweet 
kernel,  and  knows  that  they  wall  scatter  more  than 
they  eat.  To  all  creatures  that  will  sow  the  seeds 
of  her  berries  she  offers  the  delectable  pulp:  **Do 
this  chore  for  me,  and  you  will  find  the  service  its 
own  reward."  All  the  wild  fruits  of  the  fields  and 
woods  hold  seeds  that  must  be  distributed  by  ani- 
mal agency.  Even  the  fiery  arum  or  Indian 
turnip,  tempts  some  birds  to  feast  upon  its  red 
berries,  and  thus  scatter  the  undigested  seeds. 
The  mice  and  the  squirrels  doubtless  give  them  a 
wide  berth,  but  in  the  crop  of  the  fowl  the  seeds 
have  the  sting  taken  out  of  them.  You  cannot 
poison  a  hen  with  strychnine. 

We  ourselves  are  covetous  of  those  things  of 
which  we  have  but  few,  extravagant  with  those  of 
which  we  have  an  abundance.  When  the  Western 
farmer  burns  corn  in  place  of  coal,  be  assured  he 
sees  his  own  account  in  it.  We  husband  our  white 
pine,  and  are  free  with  our  hemlock;  we  are  stingy 
with  our  hickory,  and  open-handed  with  our  beech 
and  chestnut. 


XII 

NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

As  I  saunter  through  the  fields  and  woods  I  dis- 
cover new  acts  in  Nature's  drama.  They  are, 
however,  the  old  acts,  played  again  and  again, 
which  have  hitherto  escaped  my  notice,  so  ab- 
sorbed have  I  been  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  cur- 
tain, and  in  the  entrances  and  exits  of  the  more 
familiar  players.  I  count  myself  fortunate  if,  dur- 
ing each  season,  I  detect  a  few  new  acts  on  the  vast 
stage;  and  as  long  as  I  live  I  expect  to  cogitate  and 
speculate  on  the  old  acts,  and  keep  up  my  interest 
in  the  whole  performance. 

I.      SUNRISE 

The  most  impressive  moment  of  the  day  here  in 
the  Catskills  is  the  rising  of  the  sun.  From  my 
cot  on  the  porch  I  see  the  first  flash  of  his  coming. 
Before  that  I  see  his  rays  glint  here  and  there 
through  the  forest  trees  which  give  a  mane  to  the 
mountain  crest.  The  dawn  comes  very  gently. 
I  am  usually  watching  for  it.  As  I  gaze  I  gradually 
become  conscious  of  a  faint  luminousness  in  the 
eastern  sky.  This  slowly  increases  and  changes  to 
a  deep  saffron,  and  then  in  eight  or  ten  minutes 
that  fades  into  a  light  bluish  tinge — the  gold  turns 

197 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

to  silver.  After  some  minutes  the  sky,  just  at  the 
point  where  the  sun  is  to  appear,  begins  to  glow 
again,  as  if  the  silver  were  getting  warm;  a  minute 
or  twa  more  and  the  brow  of  the  great  god  is  above 
the  horizon  line.  His  mere  brow,  as  I  try  to  fix 
my  eye  upon  it,  fairly  smites  me  blind.  The  brow 
IS  magnified  by  the  eye  into  the  whole  face.  One 
realizes  in  these  few  seconds  how  rapidly  the  old 
earth  turns  on  its  axis.  You  witness  the  miracle 
of  the  transition  of  the  dawn  into  day.  The  day 
is  born  in  a  twinkling.  Is  it  Browning  who  uses  the 
word  *'boir*  to  describe  this  moment? — "Day  boils 
at  last."  Gilder,  I  think,  speaks  of  it  as  a  scimitar 
flashing  on  the  brim  of  the  world.  At  any  rate, 
I  watch  for  it  each  morning  as  if  I  were  seeing  it 
for  the  first  time.  It  is  the  critical  moment  of  the 
day.  You  actually  see  the  earth  turning.  Later 
in  the  day  one  does  not  note  in  the  same  way  the 
sun  climbing  the  heavens.  The  setting  sun  does 
not  impress  one,  because  it  is  usually  enveloped  in 
vapors.  His  day's  work  is  done  and  he  goes  to  his 
rest  veiled  and  subdued.  He  is  new  in  the  morning 
and  old  at  his  going  down.  His  gilding  of  the  clouds 
at  sunset  is  a  token  of  a  fair  day  on  the  morrow; 
his  touching  them  with  fire  in  the  morning  is  a 
token  of  wind  or  storm.  So  much  we  make  of 
these  things,  yet  the  sun  knows  them  not.  They 
are  local  and  only  earth  phenomena,  yet  the  bene- 
faction of  the  sun  is  as  if  it  shone  for  us  alone.     It 

198 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

is  as  great  as  if  this  were  the  case,  and  yet  the 
fraction  of  his  light  and  heat  that  actually  falls 
upon  this  mote  of  a  world  adrift  in  sidereal  space 
is  so  infinitely  small  that  it  could  hardly  be  com- 
puted by  numbers.  In  our  religion  we  appropriate 
God  to  ourselves  in  the  same  way,  but  he  knows 
us  not  in  this  private  and  particular  way,  though 
we  are  all  sharers  in  the  Universal  Beneficence. 

II.     nature's  methods 

Nature  baffles  us  by  methods  so  unlike  our  own. 
Man  improves  upon  his  inventions;  he  makes  them 
better  and  better  and  discards  the  old.  The  first 
airplane  flew  a  few  miles  with  its  pilot;  now  the 
airplane  flies  hundreds  of  miles  and  carries  tons  of 
weight.  Nature  has  progressed  steadily  from  lower 
to  higher  forms,  but  she  keeps  all  her  lower  forms; 
her  first  rude  sketches  are  as  precious  to  her  as  the 
perfected  models.  There  is  no  vacancy  at  the 
bottom  of  her  series,  as  there  is  in  the  case  of  man. 
I  am  aware  that  we  falsify  her  methods  in  contrast- 
ing them  with  those  of  man  in  any  respect.  She 
has  no  method  in  our  sense  of  the  term.  She  is 
action,  and  not  thought,  growth  and  not  con- 
struction, is  internal  and  not  external.  To  try  to 
explain  her  in  terms  of  our  own  methods  is  like 
trying  to  describe  the  sphere  in  terms  of  angles 
and  right  lines. 

The  origin  of  species  is  as  dark  a  problem  as  is 

109 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

the  origin  of  the  secondary  rocks.  What  factors 
or  forces  entered  into  the  production  of  the  vast 
variety  of  stratified  rocks,  differing  as  widely  from 
the  original  Adam  rock,  the  granite,  as  the  races 
of  men  differ  from  one  another?  There  is  just  as 
much  room  for  natural  selection  to  work  in  one 
case  as  in  the  other.  We  find  where  two  kinds  of 
rock  touch,  one  overlying  the  other,  and  absolute 
difference  in  texture  and  color,  and  no  union  be- 
tween them.  How  account  for  their  juxtaposition  ? 
Rock  begat  rock,  undoubtedly,  and  the  aerial  forces 
played  the  chief  part,  but  the  origin  of  each  kind 
is  hidden  in  the  abyss  of  geologic  time,  as  is  that 
of  the  animal  species. 

The  position  of  the  camel  with  reference  to  the 
giraffe  in  Africa  is  analogous  to  that,  say,  of  the 
Catskill  conglomerate  to  the  laminated  sandstone 
that  lies  beneath  it.  They  are  kindred;  one  gradu- 
ates into  the  other.  Whence  the  long  neck  and 
high  withers  of  the  giraffe  .^^  The  need  of  high  feed- 
ing, say  the  selectionists,  but  other  browsing  ani- 
mals must  have  felt  the  same  need.  Our  moose  is 
strictly  a  browsing  animal,  and,  while  his  neck  and 
shoulders  are  high,  and  his  lips  long,  they  do  not 
approach  those  of  the  giraffe.  The  ostrich  has  a 
long  neck  also,  but  it  is  a  low  feeder,  mainly  from 
the  ground. 

We  can  only  account  for  man  and  other  higher 
forms  of  life  surviving  in  the  highway  of  the  physi- 

200 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

cal  forces  on  the  ground  that  the  wheels  and  tramp- 
ing hoofs  missed  them  much  oftener  than  they  hit 
them.  They  learned  instinctively  to  avoid  these 
destructive  forces.  Animal  life  was  developed 
amid  these  dangers.  The  physical  forces  go  their 
way  as  indifferent  to  life  as  is  your  automobile  to 
the  worms  and  beetles  in  the  road.  Pain  and  suf- 
fering are  nothing  to  the  Eternal;  the  only  thing 
that  concerns  It  is  the  survival  of  the  fit,  no  matter 
how  many  fall  or  are  crushed  by  the  way;  to  It 
men  are  as  cheap  as  fleas;  and  they  have  slaughtered 
one  another  in  Europe  of  late  without  help  or 
hindrance  from  the  Eternal,  as  do  the  tribes  of 
hostile  ants.  The  wars  of  the  microbes  and  the 
wars  of  men  are  all  of  a  piece  in  the  total  scheme 
of  things.  The  survivors  owe  their  power  of  sur- 
vival to  the  forces  that  sought  their  destruction; 
they  are  strong  by  what  they  have  overcome;  they 
graduated  in  that  school.  Hence  it  is  that  we  can 
say  that  evil  is  for  us  as  much  as  it  is  against  us. 
Pain  and  suffering  are  guardian  angels;  they  teach 
us  what  to  shun. 

How  puzzling  and  contradictory  Nature  often  is ! 
How  impossible,  for  instance,  to  reduce  her  use  of 
horns  to  a  single  rule.  In  the  deer  and  elk  tribe 
the  antlers  seem  purely  secondary  sexual  charac- 
teristics. They  are  dropped  as  the  season  wanes; 
but  the  antelopes  do  not  drop  their  horns,  and  in 
Africa  they  are  singularly  ornamental.     But  with 

201 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

our  common  sheep  the  horns  are  sexual  manifes- 
tations; yet  the  old  ram  does  not  shed  his  horns. 
Nature  will  not  be  consistent. 

Back  in  geologic  time  we  had  a  ruminant  with 
four  horns,  two  on  the  nose  and  two  on  the  crown, 
and  they  were  real,  permanent,  bony  growths. 

What  a  powerful  right  fore  limb  Nature  has  given 
to  the  shovel-footed  mole,  while  the  chipmunk, 
who  also  burrows  in  the  ground,  has  no  special  tool 
to  aid  him  in  building  his  mound  of  earth;  he  is 
compelled  to  use  his  soft,  tender  little  nose  as  a 
pusher.  When  the  soil  which  his  feet  have  loosened 
has  accumulated  at  the  entrance  to  his  hole,  he 
shoves  it  back  with  his  nose. 

Even  to  some  of  her  thistles  Nature  is  partial. 
The  Canada  thistle  sows  its  seeds  upon  the  wind 
like  the  common  native  thistle;  then  in  addition 
it  sends  a  big  root  underground  parallel  with  its 
surface,  and  just  beyond  the  reach  of  the  plough, 
which  sends  up  shoots  every  six  or  seven  inches,  so 
that,  like  some  other  noxious  weeds,  it  carries  on 
its  conquests  like  a  powerful  besieging  army, 
both  below  ground  and  above. 

A  bachelor  of  laws  in  INlichigan  writes  me  in  a 
rather  peremptory  manner,  demanding  an  answer 
by  return  mail  as  to  why  robins  are  evenly  dis- 
tributed over  the  country  instead  of  collected  in 
large  numbers  in  one  locality;  and  if  they  breed 
in  the  South;    and  he  insists  that  my  answer  be 

202 


NEW  GLExVNINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

explicit,  and  not  the  mere  statement  "that  it  is 
natural  law."  I  wonder  that  he  did  not  put  a 
special-dehvery  stamp  on  his  letter.  lie  is 
probably  wondering  why  I  am  so  dilatory  in  answer- 
ing. 

There  seems  to  be  an  inherent  tendency  in 
nearly  all  living  things  to  scatter,  to  seek  new  fields. 
They  are  obeying  the  first  command — to  increase 
and  multiply.  Then  it  is  also  a  question  of  food, 
which  is  limited  in  every  locality.  Robins  do  not 
breed  in  flocks,  but  in  pairs.  Every  gas  is  a 
vacuum  to  every  other  gas;  and  every  locality  is 
a  vacuum  to  the  different  species  of  birds  that 
breed  there.  The  seed-eaters,  the  fruit-eaters,  the 
insect-eaters,  and  the  omnivorous  feeders,  like  the 
robin — in  other  words,  the  sparrows,  the  fly- 
catchers, the  warblers — may  and  do  all  live  to- 
gether in  harmony  in  the  same  narrow  area. 

The  struggle  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much 
since  Darwin's  time  is  mainly  a  natural  sifting  and 
distributing  process,  such  as  that  going  on  all  about 
us  by  the  winds  and  the  waters.  The  seeds  carried 
by  the  winds  do  not  thrive  unless  they  chance  to 
fall  on  suitable  ground.  All  may  be  *'fit"  to  sur- 
vive and  yet  fail  unless  they  are  also  lucky.  What 
so  frail  as  a  spider's  web,  and  yet  how  the  spiders 
thrive!  Nature  gives  the  weak  many  advantages. 
There  is  a  slow,  bloodless  struggle  of  one  spec  ies 
with  another — the  fleet  with  the  slow,  the  cunning 

203 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

with  the  stupid,  the  sharp-eyed  and  sharp-eared 
with  the  dull  of  eye  and  ear,  the  keen  of  scent  with 
the  blunt  of  scent — which  we  call  natural  competi- 
tion; but  the  slow,  the  stupid,  the  dull-eyed, 
dull-eared,  and  dull-scented  find  their  place  and 
thrive  for  all  that.  They  are  dull  and  slow  be- 
cause they  do  not  need  to  be  otherwise;  the  con- 
ditions of  their  lives  do  not  require  speed  and 
sharpness.  The  porcupine  has  its  barbed  quills, 
the  skunk  its  pungent  secretion.  All  parts  of 
nature  dovetail  together.  The  deer  and  the 
antelope  kind  have  speed  and  sharp  senses  because 
their  enemies  have  speed  and  sharp  senses.  The 
small  birds  are  keen-eyed  and  watchful  because 
the  hawks  are  so,  too.  The  red  squirrel  dominates 
the  gray  squirrel,  which  is  above  him  in  size  and 
strength,  and  the  chipmunk  below  him,  but  he 
does  not  exterminate  either.  The  chipmunk 
burrows  in  the  ground  where  the  red  cannot  follow 
him,  and  he  lays  up  a  store  of  nuts  and  seeds  which 
the  red  does  not.  The  weasel  easily  dominates 
the  rat,  but  the  rat  prospers  in  spite  of  cats  and 
traps  and  weasels. 

The  sifting  of  species  is  done  largely  by  en- 
vironment, the  wet,  the  cold,  the  heat — the 
fittest,  or  those  best  adapted  to  their  environment, 
survive.  For  some  obscure  reason  they  have  a 
fuller  measure  of  life  than  those  who  fall  by  the 
way. 

204 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

III.      HEADS  AND   TAILS 

I  HAVE  heard  a  story  of  a  young  artist  who,  after 
painting  a  picture  of  a  horse  facing  a  storm,  was 
not  satisfied  with  it,  and,  feehng  that  something 
was  wrong,  asked  Landseer  to  look  at  it.  In- 
stantly the  great  artist  said  to  him,  "Turn  the 
horse  around." 

The  cow  turns  her  head  to  the  storm,  the  horse 
turns    his    tail.     Why    this    difference?    Because 
each  adopts  the  plan  best  suited  to  its  needs  and  its 
anatomy.     How  much  better  suited  is  the  broad, 
square  head  of  the  cow,  with  its  heavy  coating  of 
hair  and  its  ridge  of  bone  that  supports  its  horns, 
to  face  the  storm  than  is  the  smooth,  more  nervous 
and  sensitive  head  of  the  horse!     What  a  contrast 
between  their  noses  and  their  mode  of  grazing! 
The  cow  has  no  upper  front  teeth;  she  reaps  the 
grass  with  the  scythe  of  her  tongue,  while  the  horse 
bites  it  off  and  loves  to  bite  the  turf  with  it.    The 
lip  of  the  horse  is  mobile  and  sensitive.    Then  the 
bovine  animals  fight  with  their  heads,  and  the 
equine  with  their  heels.    The  horse  is  a  hard  and 
high  kicker,  the  cow  a  feeble  one  in  comparison. 
The  horse  will  kick  with  both  hind  feet,  the  cow 
with  only  one.    In  fact,  there  is  not  much  *'kick" 
in  her  kind.    The  tail  of  the  cow  is  of  less  protection 
to  her  than  is  that  of  the  horse  to  him.    Her  great 
need  of  it  is  to  fight  flies,  and,  if  attacked  in  the 
rear,  it  furnishes  a  good  hold  for  her  enemies.  Then 

205 


UNDER  THE  IVIAPLES 

her  bony  stern,  with  its  ridges  and  depressions  and 
thin  flanks,  is  less  fit  in  any  encounter  with  storm 
or  with  beast  than  is  her  head.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  round,  smooth,  sohd  buttocks  of  the  horse,  with 
their  huge  masses  of  muscles,  his  smooth  flanks, 
and  his  tail — an  apron  of  long,  straight,  strong  hair 
— are  well  designed  to  resist  storm  and  cold.  What 
animal  is  it  in  Job  whose  neck  is  clothed  with 
thunder.^  With  the  horse,  it  is  the  hips  that  are  so 
clothed.    His  tremendous  drive  is  in  his  hips. 

IV.   AN  UNSAVORY  SUBJECT 

If  a  rose  by  any  other  name  would  smell  as  sweet, 
I  suppose  the  breath  of  the  obscene  fungus  by  any 
other  name  would  smell  as  rank.  The  defensive 
weapon  of  our  black-and-white  wood  pussy  would 
probably  not  be  less  offensive  if  we  called  him  by 
that  name  alone,  instead  of  the  common  one  by 
which  he  is  universally  known. 

While  in  southern  California  last  winter  I  heard 
of  one  that  took  up  his  abode  in  the  basement  of  a 
house  that  stood  on  the  side  of  a  hill  in  the  edge  of 
the  country.  It  was  in  a  sort  of  lumber-room  where 
all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends  had  accumulated.  On 
some  shelves  was  a  box  of  miscellaneous  articles, 
such  as  lids  to  tin  cans,  bed  castors,  old  tooth- 
brushes, bits  of  broken  crockery,  pieces  of  wire, 
chips  of  wood,  and  the  dried  foot  and  leg  of  a  hen. 
One  morning,  on  opening  the  door  of  the  basement, 

206 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

the  mistress  of  the  house  was  surprised  to  see  tlie 
whole  collection  of  trash  laid  out  in  a  line  across 
the  floor.  The  articles  were  placed  with  some  de- 
gree of  regularity  covering  a  si)ace  about  fifteen 
inches  wide  and  ten  feet  in  length.  There  were 
sixty-one  articles  in  the  row. 

Having  such  an  unsavory  creature  in  the  base- 
ment of  one's  house  is  rather  ticklish  business; 
not  so  perilous  as  a  stick  of  dynamite,  yet  fraught 
with  unpleasant  possibilities.  They  cleared  away 
the  exhibit  and  left  the  door  open,  hoping  their 
uninvited  guest  would  take  his  departure.  But  he 
did  not.  A  few  nights  later  he  began  another  col- 
lection, finding  a  lot  of  new  material — among  other 
things  a  box  with  old  atomizer  bulbs,  four  of  which 
bulbs  he  arranged  here  and  there,  in  the  row — a 
motley  array. 

What  is  his  object?  I  confess  I  do  not  know. 
No  one  has  seen  him  do  it,  as  he  works  at  night, 
but  there  is  httle  doubt  that  it  is  his  work.^  The 
Western  skunk  is  a  small  creature,  not  much  bigger 
than  a  gray  squirrel.  Ke  can  hide  behind  a  dust- 
pan. 

I  wish  some  one  would  tell  me  why  this  night 
prowler  so  often  seems  to  spray  the  midnight  air 
with  his  essence  which  leaves  no  trace  by  day.  He 
never  taints  his  own  fur  with  it.    In  the  wilds  our 

^Later  investigations  point  to  this  having  been  the  work  of 
a  wood  rat  instead  of  a  skunk. — C.  B. 

207 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

Eastern  species  is  as  free  from  odor  as  a  squirrel  oi 
a  woodchuck.  Kill  or  disturb  one  by  day  or  night 
in  his  haunts,  and  he  leaves  an  odor  on  the  ground 
that  lasts  for  months.  While  at  a  friend's  house  in 
the  Catskills  last  August  a  wood  pussy  came  up 
behind  the  kitchen  and  dug  in  the  garbage-heap. 
We  saw  him  from  the  window  in  the  early  evening, 
and  we  smelled  him.  For  some  reason  he  betrayed 
his  presence.  Late  that  night  I  was  awakened  by  a 
wave  of  his  pungent  odor;  it  fairly  made  my  nose 
smart,  yet  in  the  morning  no  odor  could  be  detected 
anywhere  about  the  place.  Of  course  the  smell  is 
much  more  pronounced  in  the  damp  night  air 
than  by  day,  yet  this  does  not  seem  an  adequate 
explanation.  Does  he  signal  at  night  to  his  fellows 
by  his  odor?  He  has  no  voice,  so  far  as  I  know.  I 
have  never  heard  him  make  a  vocal  sound.  When 
caught  in  a  trap,  or  besieged  by  dogs  in  a  stone 
wall,  he  manifests  his  displeasure  by  stamping 
his  feet.  He  is  the  one  American  who  does  not 
hurry  through  life.  I  have  no  proof  that  he  ever 
moves  faster  than  a  walk,  or  that  by  any  sign,  he 
ever  experiences  the  feeling  of  fear,  so  common  to 
nearly  all  our  smaller  animals.  His  track  upon  the 
snow  is  that  of  a  creature  at  peace  with  all  the  \ 
world. 

V.   CHANCE  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

Chance  plays  a  much  larger  part  in  the  lives  o( 

208 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

some  animals  than  of  others.  The  frog  and  the 
toad  lay  hundreds  of  eggs,  the  fishes  spawn 
thousands,  but  most  birds  lay  only  five  or  six 
eggs. 

A  spendthrift  with  one  hand.  Nature  is  often  a 
miser  with  the  other.  She  lets  loose  an  army  of 
worms  upon  the  forests,  and  then  sends  an  ich- 
neumon-fly to  check  them.  She  wastes  no  perfume 
or  color  upon  the  flowers  which  depend  upon  the 
wind  to  scatter  their  pollen.  Cross-fertilization  is 
dear  to  her,  and  she  invents  many  ingenious  ways 
to  bring  it  about,  as  in  certain  orchids.  She  will 
rob  the  bones  of  the  fowl  of  their  lime  to  perfect  the 
shell  of  the  egg.  She  w^astes  no  wit  or  cunning  on 
the  porcupine  or  on  the  skunk,  because  she  has 
already  endowed  each  of  them  with  a  perfect 
means  of  defense. 

Two  things  Nature  is  not  chary  of — fear  and 
pain.  She  heaps  the  measure  here  because  fear 
puts  her  creatures  on  the  safe  side;  it  saves  them 
from  many  real  dangers.  What  dangers  have 
lurked  for  man  and  for  most  wild  things  in  the 
dark!  How  silly  seems  the  fear  of  the  horse!  a 
fluttering  piece  of  paper  may  throw  him  in  a  panic. 
Pain,  too,  safeguards  us;  it  shields  us  against  real 
dangers.  The  pains  of  childbirth  are  probably  no 
check  upon  offspring,  because  the  ecstasy  of 
procreation,  especially  on  the  part  of  the  male, 
overcomes  all  other  considerations. 

£09 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

VI.   MOSQUITOES  AND  FLEAS 

Mosquitoes  for  the  North  and  mainly  fleas  and 
ticks  for  the  South  —  this  seems  to  be  Nature's  de- 
cree, at  least  in  this  country.  The  mosquitoes  of  the 
Far  North  pounce  upon  one  suddenly  and  fero- 
ciously, while  our  Jersey  mosquitoes  hesitate  and 
parley  and  make  exasperating  feints  and  passes. 
On  the  tundra  of  Alaska,  if  I  stopped  for  a  moment  a 
ewarm  of  these  insects  rose  out  of  the  grass  as  if 
they  had  been  waiting  for  me  all  the  years  (as  they 
had)  and  were  so  hungry  that  they  could  not  stand 
upon  the  order  of  their  proceeding,  but  came  head- 
long. 

In  Jamaica  the  dogs  were  persecuted  almost  to 
death  by  the  fleas.  They  were  the  most  sorry, 
forlorn,  and  emaciated  dogs  I  ever  saw.  Life  was 
evidently  a  burden  to  them.  I  remember  that 
Lewis  and  Clark,  in  their  journey  across  the  con- 
tinent, were  greatly  pestered  by  fleas.  I  have 
found  that  our  woodchucks,  when  they  "hole  up" 
in  the  fall,  are  full  of  fleas. 

VII.   THE   CHANGE   OF  CLIMATE   IN   SOUTHERN   CALI- 
FORNIA 

I  HAVE  just  been  reading,  for  the  third  time, 
Dana's  *'Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,"  my  sojourn 
near  San  Diego  for  a  few  months,  where  so  many  of 
the  scenes  and  events  he  describes  took  place,  hav- 
ing given  me  a  renewed  interest  in  the  book. 

210 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

It  is  very  evident  that  the  climate  of  southern 
CaHfornia  has  greatly  changed  since  Dana  was  here 
in  the  trading  ships  Pilgrim  and  Alert,  in  1832  and 
1833.  The  change  has  been  from  wet  to  dry. 
At  that  time  his  ship  collected,  and  others  engaged 
in  the  same  trade  collected,  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  hides  and  great  quantities  of  tallow,  all  from 
cattle  grown  by  the  missions  between  San  Diego 
and  Santa  Barbara.  This  fact  impHes  good  pastur- 
age. The  cattle  grazed  on  the  hills  and  plains  that 
are  now,  during  a  large  part  of  the  year,  as  dry  as 
a  bone.  At  present  cattle  left  to  their  own  devices 
on  this  coast  would  soon  starve  to  death. 

Dana  describes  violent  storms  of  wind  and  rain, 
mainly  from  the  southeast,  which  the  ship,  an- 
chored a  few  miles  off  the  coast,  or  cruising  up  and 
down,  experienced  at  all  times  of  year — one  or  more 
storms  each  week,  often  lasting  for  days.  One 
December  he  describes  it  as  raining  every  hour  for 
the  whole  month.  The  dread  of  the  southeasters 
was  ever  present  with  the  sailors.  One  of  these, 
lasting  three  days,  which  came  out  of  a  cloudless 
sky,  blew  the  sails  to  tatters.  Nowadays  a  south- 
east storm  of  half  a  day  is,  according  to  my  expe- 
rience, an  uncommon  occurrence.  To-day  scarcely 
a  drop  of  rain  falls  here  from  April  till  November, 
yet  Dana  describes  many  heavy  rains  in  August. 
At  present,  in  some  of  the  interior  valleys,  where 
they  grow  alfalfa  by  means  of  irrigation,   I   see 

211 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

herds  of  well-kept  dairy  cows.  In  the  season 
of  rains  the  grass  springs  up  and  for  a  time  cattle 
do  well,  but  during  the  long  dry  season  there  is  no 
pasturage  save  dry  pasturage. 

Although  winter  is  supposed  to  be  the  rainy  sea- 
son here,  I  have  been  here  during  three  seasons  and 
have  so  far  seen  only  light  rains.  To-day  (Decem- 
ber 16th)  the  earth  is  like  powder  as  deep  down  as 
you  care  to  dig.  Yesterday  I  saw  a  man  dragging  in 
grain,  and  a  great  cloud  of  dust  streamed  out  behind 
him.  Ten  or  more  years  ago  there  was  a  very  heavy 
rainfall  in  this  locality  that  inundated  large  sections 
of  the  country  and  destroyed  much  property,  the 
dry  San  Diego  River  getting  out  of  bounds  and 
carrying  away  bridges  and  floating  houses  on  its 
banks.  But  it  has  been  as  dry  as  a  highway  ever 
since.  It  is  clear  that  when  the  big  rains  do  come 
they  are  more  sporadic  and  uncertain  than  formerly. 

VIII.   ALL-SEEING   NATURE 

Sitting  by  a  flat  rock  one  summer  morning,  on 
my  home  acres  in  the  Catskills,  I  noticed  that  the 
wild  strawberry-vines  sent  out  their  runners  over 
the  rock,  the  surface  of  which  is  on  a  level  with  the 
turf,  just  as  over  the  ground.  Of  course  they 
could  not  take  root,  but  they  went  through  all  the 
motions  of  taking  root;  the  little  clusters  of  leaves 
developed  at  intervals,  the  rootlets  showed  their 
points  or  stood  at  "attention,"  and  the  runners 

212 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

pushed  out  two  or  three  feet  over  the  barren  surface 
and  then  seemed  to  hesitate  hke  a  traveler  in  the 
desert  whose  strength  begins  to  fail.  The  first 
knot,  or,  one  might  say,  the  first  encampment,  was 
about  one  foot  from  the  last  one  upon  the  turf,  the- 
next  one  about  eight  inches  farther  in;  then  the 
distance  dropped  to  six  inches,  then  to  four.  I 
think  the  runner  finally  gave  it  up  and  stopped 
reaching  out.  Each  group  of  leaves  apparently 
draws  its  main  sustenance  from  the  one  next  be- 
hind it,  and  when  this  one  fails  to  reach  the  soil  it 
loses  heart  and  can  give  little  succor  to  the  next  in 
front.  The  result  is  that  the  stools  become  smaller 
and  smaller,  and  the  distances  between  them  less 
and  less,  down  the  whole  line. 

Nature's  methods  are  seen  in  the  little  as  well 
as  in  the  big,  and  these  little  purple  runners  of  the 
vine  pushing  out  in  all  directions  show  the  all- 
round-the-circle  efforts  of  Nature  as  clearly  as  do 
the  revolving  orbs  in  sidereal  space.  Her  living 
impulses  go  out  in  all  directions.  She  scatters  her 
seeds  upon  the  barren  as  well  as  upon  fertile  spots. 
She  sends  rains  and  dews  upon  the  sea  as  well  as 
upon  the  land.  She  knows  not  our  parsimony  nor 
our  prudence.  We  say  she  is  blind,  but  without 
eyes  she  is  all-seeing;  only  her  creatures  who  live  to 
particular  ends,  and  are  limited  to  particular 
spheres,  have  need  of  eyes.  Nature  has  all  time 
and  all  space  and  all  ends.    Delays  and  failure  she 

213 


knows  not.  If  the  runners  of  her  strawberries  do 
not  reach  their  goal,  the  trouble  corrects  itself;  they 
finally  stop  searching  for  it  in  that  direction,  and 
the  impulse  of  the  plant  goes  out  stronger  and  fuller 
on  other  sides. 

If  the  rains  were  especially  designed  to  replenish 
our  springs  and  supply  our  growing  crops,  the 
clouds  might  reasonably  be  expected  to  limit  their 
benefactions,  as  do  our  sprinkling  carts;  but  the 
rains  are  older  than  are  we  and  our  crops,  and  it  is 
we  who  must  adjust  ourselves  to  them,  not  they 
to  us. 

The  All-Seeing,  then,  has  no  need  of  our  special- 
ized vision.  Does  the  blood  need  eyes  to  find  its 
way  to  the  heart  and  lungs?  Does  the  wind  need 
eyes  to  find  the  fertile  spots  upon  which  to  drop 
its  winged  seeds  .^^  It  drops  them  upon  all  spots,  and 
each  kind  in  due  time  finds  its  proper  habitat,  the 
highly  specialized,  such  as  those  of  the  marsh  plants, 
hitting  their  marks  as  surely  as  do  others. 

Our  two  eyes  serve  us  well  because  our  footsteps 
are  numbered  and  must  go  in  a  particular  direc- 
tion, but  the  goal  of  all-seeing  Nature  is  everywhere, 
and  she  arrives  before  she  starts.  She  has  no 
plan  and  no  method,  and  she  is  not  governed. 

These  conceptions  express  too  little,  not  too 
much.  Nature's  movements  are  circular;  her 
definite  ends  are  enclosed  in  universal  ends.  The 
rains  fall  because  the  vapors  rise.    The  rain  is  no 

214 


NEW  GLEANINGS  IN  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

more  an  end  than  is  the  rising  vapor.  Each  is  a 
part  of  the  great  circuit  of  beneficent  and  malevo- 
lent forces  upon  which  our  life  (and  all  life)  de- 
pends, upon  which  the  making  of  the  soil  of  the 
earth  and  the  shaping  of  the  landscape  depend; 
all  vegetable  and  animal  life,  all  the  bloom  and 
perfume  of  the  world,  all  the  glory  of  cloud  and 
sky,  all  the  hazards  of  flood  and  storm,  all  the  ter- 
ror of  torrents  and  inundations,  are  in  this  circuit 
of  the  waters  from  the  sea  to  the  sky,  and  back 
again  through  the  rivers  to  the  sea.  In  our  geologic 
time  there  is,  in  this  circuit  of  the  waters,  more  that 
favors  life  than  hinders  it,  else,  as  I  so  often  say, 
we  should  not  be  here.  The  enormous  destruction 
of  human  life,  of  all  life,  which  has  taken  place  and 
will  continue  to  take  place,  in  this  beneficent  cir- 
cuit, is  only  an  incident  in  the  history  of  the  globe; 
the  physical  forces  are  neither  for  nor  against  it; 
they  are  neutral;  life  to  be  here  at  all  has  to  run 
these  risks;  has  to  run  the  gantlet  of  these  forces, 
and  to  get  many  a  lash  and  gash  in  the  running. 
Against  the  suffering  and  death  incident  thereto 
there  is  no  insurance  save  in  the  wit  of  man  him- 
self. All  this  wit  has  been  developed  and  sharpened 
by  much  waste  and  suffering.  We  learn  to  deal 
with  difficulties  through  the  discipline  of  the  diffi- 
culties themselves.  If  man  were  finally  to  learn  to 
control  the  rains  and  the  floods,  it  would  be  through 
the  experience  which  they  themselves  bring  him. 

215 


UNDER  THE  MAPLES 

The  demons  that  destroy  him  are  on  his  side  when 
he  strikes  with  the  strength  which  they  give  him. 
Gravity,  which  so  often  crushes  and  overthrows 
him,  is  yet  the  source  of  all  his  might.  The  fire 
that  consumes  his  towns  and  cities  is  yet  the  same 
fire  that  warms  him  and  drives  his  engines  across 
the  continent. 

There  is  no  god  that  pities  us  or  weeps  over  our 
sufferings,  save  the  god  in  our  own  breasts.  We 
have  life  on  heroic  terms.  Nature  does  not  baby 
us  nor  withhold  from  us  the  bitter  cup.  We  take 
our  chances  with  all  other  forms  of  life.  Our  special 
good  fortune  is  that  we  are  capable  of  a  higher  de- 
velopment, capable  of  profiting  to  a  greater  extent 
by  experience,  than  are  the  lower  forms  of  life. 
And  here  is  the  mystery  that  has  no  solution:  we 
came  out  of  the  burning  nebulse  just  as  our  horse 
and  dog,  but  why  we  are  men  and  they  are  still 
horse  and  dog  we  owe  to  some  Power,  or,  shall 
I  say,  to  the  chance  working  of  a  multitude  of 
powers,  that  are  beyond  our  ken.  That  some 
Being  willed  it,  designed  it,  no;  yet  it  was  in  some 
way  provided  for  in  the  constitution  of  the  world. 

THE  END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Agassiz,  Louis,  168,  169. 

Air,  light  and  heavy,  72,  73. 

Albatross,  38. 

Animal  life,  abundance,  11,  12. 

Antlers,  201. 

Ants,  11. 

Army  trucks,  110,  111. 

Arum,  196. 

Automobile  trip,  109-26. 

Bacon,  Francis,  186. 

Barton,  W.Va.,  119. 

Bee,  honey,  spirit  of  the  hive, 
152,  158-62;  intelligence, 
156,  157;  communication, 
159,  160;  their  world,  161; 
sting,  165. 

Bee,  leaf-cutter,  14,  15. 

Beech,  autumn  color,  3. 

Birds,  living  with,  31;  flight, 
32-38;  and  cats,  56;  nesting 
near  houses,  54-59;  home 
sense,  59;  nests  of  most 
species  built  by  the  females, 
64,  65;  and  dead  trees,  84, 
85;  song,  86;  at  Pine  Knot, 
Va.,  102-05;  of  southern 
CaUfornia,  129-32;  commu- 
nity of  mind  in  flocks,  153, 
154. 

Birds'  nests,  finding,  79-81. 

Bluebird,  endearing  qualities, 
43;  nesting,  43,  44,  54;  expe- 
rience with  a  pair,  44-48. 

Bobolink,  song  flight,  38,  85. 

Bolar  Springs,  117. 

Brain,  as  organ  of  the  mind,  22, 
23. 

Buff  on,  Georges  Louis  Le  Clerc, 
157. 

Bumble-bee,  carpenter,  36. 


Bunting,    indigo,    nesting,    90, 

91. 
Bunting,  painted,  114. 
Butterflies,  flight,  34;  flocking, 

155. 
Butterfly,  monarcli.  34,  35, 155. 
Buzzard,  turkey,  32-34. 

Cacti,  143-48. 

California,  southern,  observa- 
tions in,  127-51;  coast,  127; 
mountains,  127,  12S;  olinuite 
and  soil,  128;  bird-song,  128, 
129;  birds,  129-32;  change  of 
climate  in,  210-12. 

Cambium  layer,  5,  6. 

Carpenter,  \V.  H.,  quoted,  194. 

Catbird,  30;  stealthiness,  60,  ('>7, 
68;  experience  with  a  pair, 
60-66;  fondness  for  butter, 
66;  theatrical,  68;  notes,  87. 

Caterpillars,  91-94. 

Causes,  165-67. 

Cedar-bird,  65. 

Chance,  in  animal  life,  208.  209. 

Cheat  River,  W.Va.,  116. 

Chipmunks,  two  in  a  den,  11; 
storing  currants,  17;  carry- 
ing provender.  96,  97. 

Chippie.  See  Sparrow,  chip- 
ping. 

Chlorophyll,  190,  191. 

Chrvsalis,  12. 

Condor,  33,  34. 

Conneilsville.  Pa.,  113. 

Cormorant,  132. 

Cosmos,  the,  order  and  har- 
mony of,  191-93. 

Cow,  205. 

Crow,  flight,  37;  needs  no 
great  \Niug-power,  180. 


219 


INDEX 


Crow,  fish,  55,  56,  68. 
Cuckoo,  71,  72,  87;  solemnity, 

88;  nesting,   88,  89;  young, 

89;  nest,  90;  food,  90. 
Cuckoo,     black-billed,     notes, 

87,  88;  nesting-habits,  88. 
Cuckoo,  yellow-billed,  87. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  Jr.,  at 
San  Diego,  210,  211. 

Darwin,  Charles,  quoted,  5,  17, 
18,  33;  his  eager  study  of  nat- 
ural history,  17,  18;  observa- 
tions during  the  voyage  of 
the  Beagle,  18,  19;  failure  of 
his  theory,  147,  167-69;  his 
mind,  173;  treated  man  as 
an  animal,  174. 

Darwin,  George  Howard,  on 
the  tides,  169,  170. 

Darwinism,  a  cause  of  the 
World  War,  172-75. 

Death,  an  analogy  of,  185, 186. 

Desert,  vegetation  of  the,  143- 
48. 

Dove,  mourning,  or  turtle- 
dove, 86. 

Earth,  the,  quiverings  of  the 
surface,  169-71;  the  North- 
ern and  Southern  Hemi- 
spheres, 171,  172. 

Edison,  Thomas  A.,  114,  119; 
contrasted  with  Mr.  Ford, 
122-25. 

Elm,  autumn  color,  3. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  quot- 
ed, 69,  165,  186. 

Erosion,  as  sculpture,  181-83. 

Fabre,  Jean  Henri,  162;  quot- 
ed, 139. 

Far-away,  the,  39. 

Fear  in  animals,  58,  59,  154, 
155,  209. 

Fireflies,  19. 

Firestone,  H.  S.,  119,  125. 

Fish,  schools  of,  154. 


Fleas  210.    " 

Flies,' inteiligence,  156,  157. 

Foraminiferae,  194. 

Ford,    Henry,    113,    114,    119, 

120;    contrasted    with    Mr. 

Edison,  122-24. 
Foxes,  180. 
Frog,  wood,  94,  95. 

Germans,  Darwinism,  and  the 

World  War,  172-75. 
Giraffe,  200. 

Girls,  two  West  Virginia,  115. 
Gnatcatcher,  blue-gray,  103. 
God,  man  appropriating,  199. 
Goldfinch,  flight,  37,  42;  chorus 

singing,    40-42;    notes,    42; 

notes  of  young,  43;  nesting, 

43. 
Grand  Canon,  182,  194. 
Grass,  the  wonder  of,  74,  75. 
Grasshoppers,  155. 
Great  Smoky  Mts.,  109. 
Greensborough,  Pa.,  112. 
Grosbeak,  rose-breasted,  nest* 

ing,  65. 
Grouse,  ruffed,  166. 
Gull,  herring,  131. 
Gulls,  flight,  38. 

Hawk,  red-tailed,  32. 
Hawks,  flight,  35. 
Haymaking,  69-76. 
Hen-hawk,  flight,  35. 
Hornets,  163. 
Horns,  201,  202. 
Horse,  205,  206. 
Horseshoe  Run,  W.Va.,  114. 
Hummingbird,    ruby-throated, 

64;  bathing  in  dew,  13;  nest, 

79;  a  fairy  bird,  94. 
Hurley,  Edward  N.,  113. 
Huxley,    Thomas   Henry,    27; 

quoted,  8,  25. 

Ibis,  white,  32,  153,  154. 
Insects,  their  world,  23-25, 162; 
senses,  24;  reaction  to  heat. 


220 


INDEX 


cold,  and  vibrations,  25;  an- 
tennae, 25;  the  ruling  sex 
among,  140,  141. 

Interpretation,  186-90. 

Ironweed,  116. 

James,  William,  22. 
Jay,  blue,  notes,  87. 
Joe-Pye-weed,  116. 
Junco,  young,  19,  20;  nesting, 
81;  abundance,  82. 

Kepler,  Johann,  169. 
Killdeer,  130,  131. 
Kingbird,  flight,  37;  and  bees, 
156. 

Leaves,  autumn,  1-3. 
Lemmings,  152,  153. 
Life,  origin  of,  194,  195. 
Life,  human,  analogies,  25-27. 
Lightning-bugs.   See  Fireflies. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  quoted, 

5. 
Lubbock,    Sir    John,    quoted, 

156. 

McCarthy,  Denis  Aloysius, 
quoted,  157. 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  quoted, 
23,  162;  on  the  bee,  156-63. 

Man,  and  Darwinism,  174;  a 
part  of  nature,  184-86;  in- 
terpretation of  nature  and  of 
himself,  186-90;  mystery  of 
his  evolution,  216. 

Maple,  sugar,  susceptibility  to 
atmospheric  changes,  72,  73. 

Maples,  autumn  color,  3. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  quoted,  185. 

Meadowlark,  song  flight,  37. 

Measuring-worm,  91,  92. 

Mice,  wild,  16;  barking  trees, 
27,  28. 

Microphone,  170,  171. 

Microseisms,  170. 

Mind,  community  of,  15^-55. 

Mockingbird,  68. 


Moose,  200. 
Mosquitoes,  210. 
Moth,  luua,  97.  -    - 

Mouse,  jumping,  166,  167. 
Mouse,  white-footed,  166. 
Mullets,  154. 

Natural  history  about  home, 
39,  40. 

Nature,  her  methods  unlike 
ours,  179-81,  199;  interpret- 
ing, 186-90;  lavishness  and 
parsimony,  195,  196,  209; 
puzzling  and  contradictory, 
201,  202;  ail-seeing,  212-14; 
her  movements  circular, 
214-16. 

Nighthawk,  104. 

Nonpareil,  or  painted  bunting, 
114. 

North  Carolina,  a  countryman 
of,  121. 

Northern  Hemisphere,  171, 172. 

Oak,  autumn  color,  3. 

Odd  and  even  numbers,  163-65. 

Oriole,  Baltimore,  30,  5(};  nest, 

48-52,  04. 
Oriole,  Bullock's,  nest,  52. 
Oriole,  orchard,  nest,  52. 
Osborn,    Henry    FairOeld,    on 

the  origin  of  life,  194,  195. 
Ostrich,  200. 
Owl,  screech,  45-47. 

Pacific  Ocean,  127. 

Pain,  209. 

Pear-trees,  autumn  color,  L 

Pelican,  California  brown,  131, 

132. 
Pennsvlvania,       motor       trip 

thnmgh,  109-13. 
Pewee,  wood,  nest,  52,  64;  its 

plaint,  87. 
Phffbe.  flight,  37:  nest,  52-54, 

50,  59,  60.  64.  79.  80. 
Pi.-^enn.  wild.  103,  104. 
Pine  Knot,  Va.,  visit  to,  101-08. 


221 


INDEX 


Pipit,  American,  129;  nest,  129, 

130. 
Pittsburgh,  111. 
Plover,  killdeer,  130,  131. 
Porcupine,  166. 

Rabbit,  its  protection,  166; 
caught  by  a  weasel,  177,  178. 

Rainbow  tints,  in  dew,  etc.,  13, 
14. 

Rat,  wood,  207  note. 

Reasons,  165-67. 

Redstart,  29. 

Road-mending,  11. 

Robin,  young,  19;  nest,  53-55, 
64,  176;  fear  of  man,  57,  58; 
fittest  to  survive,  175,  176; 
versatility,  176;  a  hustler, 
176;  danger  of  a  plague  of 
robins,  177;  a  runner,  177. 

Rocks,  origin  of  the  secondary, 
200. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  visit  to 
Pine  Knot,  Va.,  with,  101- 
08;  knowledge  of  India,  101; 
opinion  of  Taft,  105;  killing 
a  mosquito,  105,  106;  pro- 
tection of  the  President,  106; 
bird-gazing,  107;  letter  from, 
107,  108. 

Salamander,  orange-colored,  95, 

96. 
San  Diego,  Cal.,  210-12. 
Sandstone,  in  the  Catskills,  20. 
Sap,  6-8. 

Sapsucker,  yellow-bellied,  6. 
Scorpion,  23. 
Seals,  hair,  in  California,  148- 

51. 
Sex,  the  ruling,  140,  141. 
Shaler,  Nathaniel  S.,   quoted, 

169;   on   the   Northern   and 

Southern  Hemispheres,  171, 

172. 
Shrew,  16. 
Skunk,  206-08. 
Snakes,  11. 


Sources,  original,  190,  191. 

South,  characteristics  of  the, 
120,  121. 

Southern  Hemisphere,  171, 172. 

Sparrow,  story  of  a  nest,  98, 
99. 

Sparrow,  chipping  or  social, 
nest,  53,  54. 

Sparrow,  song,  song  flight,  37; 
nesting,  54;  singing,  85,  86. 

Sparrow,  vesper,  nesting,  80- 
84;  its  names,  82;  appear- 
ance and  habits,  82,  83; 
courted  by  a  skylark,  83. 

Species,  origin  of,  an  insoluble 
problem,  167-69,  199. 

Spider,  trap-door,  132-43. 

Spiders,  12,  23;  genius  of,  136. 

Spider-webs,  rainbows  in,  13, 
14. 

Squirrel,  gray,  caught  by  a 
weasel,  178. 

Squirrel,  red,  chased  by  a  wea- 
sel, 178. 

Strawberry- vines,  wild,  212-14. 

Struggle,  203,  204. 

Sunrise,  197,  198. 

Survival  of  the  fit,  201,  203. 

Swallow,  bank,  78. 

Swallow,  barn,  71;  parental 
anxiety,  76, 77;  notes,  76,  77; 
pleasing  qualities,  77,  78. 

Swallow,  cliff,  77. 

Swallow,  tree,  78. 

Swallows,  feeding,  15,  16;  hi- 
bernation, 78. 

Swift,  chimney,  36. 

Sycamore,  autumn  color,  3. 

Taft,  William  Howard,  105. 
Telepathy,  155. 
Thistle,  Canada,  202. 
Thorns,  the  use  of,  143-48. 
Thrasher,  brown,  67,  68. 
Thrush,  Alaska  hermit,  129. 
Thrush,  hermit,  song,  87. 
Thrush,  olive-backed,  30. 
Thrush,  Wilson's.  See  Veery. 


222 


INDEX 


Thrush,  wood,  30.  64;  manners 
67,  (38. 

Tides  the,  169,  170,  193,  194. 
Titlark.  SeeFipit. 

Trees,  leaves.  1-3;  mechanism 
ot  growth.  4-8;  roots  and 
rootlets,  4-6;  what  man  has 
m  common  with,  9,  10. 

Tree-toad,  71. 

Turnip,  Indian,  196. 

Turtle-dove.  See  Dove,  mourn- 
ing. 

Uniontown.  Pa..  113. 
Universe.  See  Cosmos. 

Van  Dyke,  John  C,  on  desert 
plants,  145,  146. 

Veery,  nesting,  97,  98. 

Vireo,  nest,  young,  and  moth- 
er, 99,  100. 

Vireo,  red-eyed,  86,  100. 

Vireo,  yellow-throated,  30. 

Vital  principle,  8,  9. 


I  Warbler,  Audubon's,  129 
Warbler,  Canada,  ii). 
Warbler,  mourning,  29,  31. 
Hasp,  a  solitary,  12,  13. 
Water-thrush,  or  water  accen- 
tor, 79. 

WaxM-ing,  Bohemian,  21. 

Weasel,  catching  rabbits  and 
squirrels,  177,  178;  an  inspir- 
er  of  terror,  178,  179. 

Weather,  prophesying  the,  20- 

West  Virginia,  motor  trip 
through,  114-19. 

Whitman,  Walt,  quoted,  9,  193. 

VVolf  Creek,  117. 

Woodcock,  flight  song,  32,  37. 

Woodpecker,  yellow-bellied,  6. 

Woodpeckers,  flight,  37. 

World     War,     Darwinism     a 
cause  of  the,  172-75. 

Wren,  Bewick's,  103. 

Wren,  house,  86;  and  nesting- 
box,  29. 
Wren,  winter,  nest,  79. 


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